12.05.2010

A mobile demonstration

A truck mounted aerial lift owned by Manlift Hire of Cork hit the news this morning when it was used to make a point against the Anglo Irish Bank and politicians in general.

From what we understand one of the banks business customers was fed up with the way he was being treated by the bank which has been bailed out by the Irish state along with other banks and yet fails to pass on the same consideration to its own customers.

The customer in question rented the self-drive machine from Manlift’s Galway location and then drove it across the country to the bank's head office in central Dublin. He then parked it directly outside of the bank, hooked a massive banner complete with political statement to the platform and boom and telescoped it out in order to display his message to passers by.
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The lift outside of the Anglo Irish Bank

Once set up he locked the machine and vanished.

It was not too long before the phone began ringing in the Manlift offices, with both reporters and the police looking to find out what was going on, while attempting to track down the demonstrator. The police assumed initially that the lift had been stolen and then wanted to know who had rented it and if a spare key was avaialble…. of course.

The last we heard was that the Dublin police were organising a motor bike to collect the spare key from Galway and rush it to Dublin in order that the lift and the offending banner be removed. We understand that the demonstrator was sitting watching the fuss and disruption that his handiwork was creating.

Vertikal Comment

Is this a new and possibly lucrative revenue stream for hard pressed rental companies?

It should be pointed out of course that leaving a machine up with a large banner attached is neither good nor safe practice, although our demonstrator would possibly argue that he remained close by to monitor it etc….

Our own one minute rant

The sad fact is that some banks, at least in the UK and Ireland are proving to be as belligerent and ignorant as ever in their treatment of customers. We know of several cases where banks are leaning heavily on well run and profitable crane and access companies with strong balance sheets in order to reduce their exposure to the sector.

The tactics typically involve underhanded practices such as cutting a credit limit without warning just after a series of payments have been deposited, or revaluing financed assets and then demanding that the deposit be topped up to reflect the revaluation.

At the same time it leaves other companies alone that are far deeper in debt, knowing full well that it will have to take substantial write-offs if it tried similar tactics with them. Most industry insiders would be in favour of stepping in and closing down such basket cases, and would even be sympathetic to banks refusing to increase their exposure to a company even if it is well run – but in the cases we are referring to it is often the banks that are causing the liquidity crisis.

Perhaps we should have more name and shame events