05.09.2024

Gerken and Weidler form 'partnership'

German powered access rental company Weidler Arbeitsbühnenvermietung has formed a ‘strategic partnership’ with another German rental company, Gerken Arbeitsbühnen.

Dirk and Volker Weidler have stepped down from the management board of the access company to focus on the Weidler cleaning business, while brother Marc Weidler remains at the helm of Weidler Arbeitsbühnenvermietung and is joined on the board by Christian Gerken and Markus Liffers of Gerken.

Quite what is involved with this ‘strategic partnership’ has not really been fully clarified, but we have been told that there will be no changes in the branding or running of the Weidler business. It has also not been made clear if this will lead at some point to a full acquisition.

The Weidler business was established in 1885 by Christian Weidler, who started out by cleaning windows door to door using his bicycle along with a handcart to transport his ladder and equipment. He quickly realised that professional window cleaning was a good business idea and set up a company in Mannheim. In the early 1980s the company purchased a 16 metre Herkules trailer lift from Denmark for facade cleaning and higher windows. The occasional rental of the company’s work platforms led to the family setting up a full blown aerial work platform rental division In 1988.

In 2006, the platform division was spun off as a separate entity from the cleaning company and was owned and managed by the three brothers Volker, Dirk and Marc. The platform rental company - Weidler Arbeitsbühnenvermietung - is based in Heddesheim on the west side of Mannheim and operates from nine branches in Heidelberg, Berlin, Rostock, Frankfurt, Leipzig, Kamenz, Soest and Dresden.

We will of course update this item as we learn more.