The report says:

• Non-residential construction and civil engineering will increase ‘substantially’ until 2009, but demand in petrochemical work shows less promise;

• Demand is shifting to larger size classes—the most popular AT capacity class is now 50t, but in future will be100t;

• Spierings-type mobile tower cranes are the fastest-growing crane type, benefitting partly from government urban house-building programmes;

• Rental rates continue to be kept low, mainly from competition from one-man-bands;

• About 70% of new and new-ish Dutch cranes are leased;

• Qualified personnel are scarce, and this is a problem for the industry;

• Used cranes only a few years old may now be worth more than when they were bought.

The report quotes statistics from Dutch crane association the VVT (which accounts for about 75% of the total market) that show an increase in two types of crane rental companies, those with a couple of cranes, and those with more than 30, and a decline in the number of companies owning a total of 3-29 cranes.

Partly, the company argues, crane rental companies in this size bracket are consumed in mergers or acquisitions. Such consolidations, it points out, are one of the easiest ways to grow the size of the business when cranes, and staff, are hard to find.

In 2007, there have been at least eight mergers and acquisitions among the 230-odd crane rental companies it estimates are working in the Netherlands. They include Mammoet’s acquisition of Koekkoek, Riwal by Sarens Netherlands, Vrijhof Kranen and Peter van Muyen by Schot Verticaal Transport, Ster Kranen de Bruin by Kraanbedrijf Hoogwout, Smits Ridderkerk by Kraanbedrijf Schiltmans, Kraanverhuur Zwartsluis by Kraanbedrijf BKF and Kraanverhuur Pater by Herms Verhuur.

Although it estimates that consolidation will continue, the smallest crane rental companies are unlikely to disappear, because they can keep rates low. “Scale is not essential to operate profitably in the crane sector,” the report said.

Readers can email edmond.sterk@mail.ing.nl  to request a free copy of the report.