Van der Spek, the Liebherr distributor for the Benelux countries and northern France, celebrated the 40th anniversary of its Belgian operations with a four day party from 17 to 20 May. The first three days were for 2,500 customers; the final day was for employees and their families.
‘We wanted to give something back to the market,’said managing director John Galoy, ‘for the trust and cooperation they have given us over 40 years.’ A circus was set up at the company’s premises near Brussels. While there were acrobats and clowns, plans to bring in elephants, lions and tigers had to be cancelled due to the outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Western Europe, said Galoy.
Van der Spek distributes Liebherr mobile, crawler and tower cranes, concrete mixing plants and truck mixers, as well as PM loader cranes and Maber hoists.
With its rental fleet of 440 Liebherr tower cranes – 400 of them top slewing – Van der Spek claims to have the largest single-brand tower crane fleet in the region. (Arcomet has more cranes, but they are from various manufacturers. Arcomet also has a higher proportion of self-erectors.) Galoy said that the market had been good for Van der Spek recently, with 60 all-terrain cranes sold last year and 22 units sold in the first quarter of 2001.
The company added 80 cranes to its rental fleet last year and has ordered 40 more this year for fleet renewal.
