BALDWINS Industrial Services of the UK plans to have complete national coverage of the US rental market within five to 10 years, chairman and chief executive Richard Baldwin told Cranes Today last month.
Baldwin said that this would be achieved by ‘organic growth and acquisitions’ by his Texan subsidiary Phillips Crane & Rigging. In the year to 31 March 2001 Baldwins grew its US turnover by nearly 200% to $36.1m. The first steps of wider coverage in the USA were the opening of three new Phillips depots in Texas at Long View, Dallas and Corpus Christie and one in Memphis, Tennessee.
Phillips has recently picked up a $3.2m contract from King Mountain Wind Farm in Texas to erect 220 turbines, each standing 60m high and generating 1.3MW.
Several heavy lift contracts have already been completed this year for oil and chemical companies including Dow, DuPont, Exxon, Fina and Shell.
Richard Baldwin said that he was confident that the construction of 1,900 power plants of various sizes over the next 20 years in the USA would provide ‘lots of business.’ No decisions have been made yet about acquisition targets, he said, although he added that it was company policy to buy ‘leading brands’ and not to ‘buy up old fleets.’
