We have performed the assembly and transport of more than 90% of the windmill farms up until now, installing more than 100 windmills with 0.8mW turbines. We installed them using 400t-500t telescopic cranes.
We have a joint venture with Mammoet on the crawler business, Mammoet Irga Do Brasil, since 2001. It has been a very profitable and good joint venture. It’s a synergy. Mammoet brings its expertise in big projects, and we know the market. This synergy is working well. Mammoet also helps us buy cranes.
We have cranes up to 700t. Why do we need cranes bigger than that when we have support from Mammoet? We don’t. We have 80 cranes, a mixture of crawlers and telescopics. We also have more than 300 hydraulic trailers and 100 trucks.
We are a third-generation company. My grandfather started the company in 1928. My father left the company at the end of 2007. I am trying now to put the company on a higher level.
We need to have a new mentality in the business. We are growing very fast, and we need to have more controls, and we need to be more professional. We have changed people in the accounts and finance departments, but still keep our competitive advantage, our knowledge in operations people, in salespeople. Their know-how in technical matters, especially transport and cranes, is important.
We have been working with a budget for almost one year, and we are now finalising next year’s budget. It is important to change the culture because now we have big projects, and we need to be in control. We have contracted Grant Thornton to audit the company, not only the books but also the internal controls.
We have 600 people, and depots in Rio de Janiero, Porto Alegre in the south, Fortaleza in the northeast and São Luis in the northwest.
This year, because of the financial crisis, we have not bought any cranes and are just renting some cranes from international companies for a year, with an option to buy. We are conservative, and will wait to see what we have in the market. When we had some bad periods in the last decade, we learned in those times that we could be conservative.
We need to consolidate what we invested in 2008, and that was a lot. We spent around $15m on 25t, 50t, 420t and 500t mobile cranes, and a 250t, 350t and 450t crawlers, 50 hydraulic trailers from Nicolas, 50 6×4 and 6×2 trucks, a 500t Lift Systems gantry systems, 30 lowbed trailers and two 600hp prime movers. Because demand is high, we have not sold anything. We have used the old trucks we had and put them inside the plants. Nowadays we like Liebherr, Demag and Grove. The exact model depends on the range, one is better in some areas, others in others, it is difficult to say generally.
Lupércio Torres Neto, president, IRGA Group
