06.01.2017

City Lifting acquires Vertical Transportation

UK crane sales and rental company City Lifting has confirmed that it has acquired the entire equity of tower crane and hoist specialist Vertical Transportation Ltd from its owners and founders Tom Newell and Ray Balach who are both retiring.

The business will continue to operate as before with the same staff, while City Lifting is looking to start investing in updating the crane fleet. The company owns a 2.5 acre yard in Leighton Buzzard which will shortly benefit from a new link road to the M1 motorway. The company is in sound financial state with net assets of around £3 million as of the end of 2015.
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One of Vertical Transportation's Kroll K103 'Pipe Cranes'

Vertical was established by Tom Newell and Ray Balach in July 1980, the year before Trevor Jepson founded City Lifting. Newell had started out with Climbing Cranes Ltd in 1959 with Balach joining the same company two years later. The two partners have built up a solid reputation and safety record and became known for their articulated cranes including the Magni S46 and the unusual Kroll K103 ‘pipe cranes’ that have been part of the London Skyline for many years.
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A young Tom Newell

Newell also erected the first Alimak Hoist to arrive in the UK and was in charge of dismantling the Linden D25 crane that built the GPO/Post Office tower (BT Tower) in 1964, having erected it in 1961. He is probably the only person in the UK to have erected tower cranes in each one of the past seven decades, having erected his first crane in the 1950s and his last just a few weeks ago!
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Dismantling the crane on London's GPO Tower 1964