11.04.2016

New owners for Kranlyft

Swedish crane distributor Kranlyft, the master dealer for Maeda has been acquired by private equity group Storskogen Utveckling from owners Christer Dijnér, Per-Ragnar Karlström, Bo Börjesson and Terry Marnock.

The deal follows the retirement of Terry Marnock at the end of last year, and as part of a long term plan by chief executive and co-owner Christer Dijnér to take a back seat and possibly prepare the ground for his eventual retirement.

Storskogen is a relatively small privately owned ‘business group’ that buys and owns small to medium sized standalone businesses and holds them for the long term. It claims to support and assist the companies that it owns and in own words ”We see no further limit on our ownership, but plan to own the companies forever”.
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(L-R) Bo Börjesson, Christer Dijnér and Per-Ragnar Karlström of Kranlyft, with Alexander Murad Bjärgård and Peter Ahlgren of Storskogen

Kranlyft had revenues last year of around Sk190 million (€17.8 million), and was established in 1963 as a crane distributor, and came to prominence in 1969 when it launched Kato Cranes in Europe. It added Economy scissor lifts in the 1970s and Snorkel, after it acquired Economy. In 1999 it was appointed the master dealer for Maeda spider cranes, and this became its principle business when Kato pulled out of the European market and Snorkel ran into difficulties. In 2002 Christer Dijner led an MBO along with John Hornby, Paul Rosevere, Bo Borjesson and Per-Ragnar Karlstrom, to acquire the business from previous owner Metso, which had acquired had it a few months earlier from Svedala.