04.02.2026

Luibl Acquires Uplifter

Germany’s Luibl group has acquired the operational and business assets of spider crane and vacuum lifter distributor Uplifter following its appointment of an insolvency administrator in November. The company Uplifter GmbH & Co. KG will be liquidated by the insolvency administrator. All 45 remaining Uplifter staff will transfer to the new company/group.

Luibl said: “Customer service and comprehensive support for shared customers will be improved across the entire group. Large construction companies and rental partners, in particular, will benefit from the wide range of large equipment and specialised solutions.”

Luibl's owner Karl Bauer added that a new company has been established for the business, which will operate under the name Uplifter Group. It will include a number of subsidiaries to handle the various operating divisions of Uplifter.

They are:

Uplifter Rental: The rental business will continue to operate independently under the Uplifter brand. Close collaboration with Luibl Rental will only occur on a project specific basis where synergies and cost savings are present.

Uplifter Trading: The sales and distribution business for spider and mini cranes, vacuum technology, and glass lifters will continue under the Uplifter Trading name. Industry veteran Martin Lobinger will remain with the business in order says Luibl: to “continue the positive development of his life's work. Spider cranes and glass lifters are still sometimes referred to as ‘uplifters’ because Lobinger established these types of machines on the German market.”

The trading business will also be extended to Austria, Hungary, and other Eastern European countries where Luibl Rental is already active. The acquisition will take the Luibl fleet to well over 1,000 rental machines, available from 11 locations across Germany.

Uplifter Service: The service business for Uplifter Trading products will now be handled by this new service company, with the intention of gradually expanding the service and after-sales business to other product areas such as aerial work platforms, earthmoving equipment, forklifts, and telehandlers.

Machine Operators: This subsidiary will provide operators for the various equipment, with hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly contracts. The new company will also offer operators for all equipment in the Luibl Rental group.

Uplifter was established in 2001 and is based in Guteneck, Bavaria. For most of that time, it has worked in the spider crane market and began buying Maeda cranes in 2003. It was appointed as a Maeda crane dealer in 2013, switching to Chinese manufacturer SPT in 2022.

Founded in 2013 and based in Passau on the Austrian border, Luibl runs a substantial fleet of telehandlers, forklifts, aerial work platforms and general construction equipment throughout Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Slovakia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Poland, Belgium and the Netherlands.