Doosan Bobcat purchases Doosan Industrial Vehicles for €557m
Doosan Bobcat has announced a new subsidiary – Doosan Industrial Vehicles. Formerly known as the Doosan Industrial Vehicles Business Group of the Doosan Corporation, Doosan Bobcat completed the acquisition of a 100% stake in Doosan Industrial Vehicles on 6th July 2021, for KRW 750 billion (557 million EUR).
On 1st July 2021, Doosan Industrial Vehicles announced that it had split from Doosan Corporation and that its Board of Directors had appointed Executive Vice President, Taeil Kim, the head of Doosan Industrial Vehicles Business Group since 2020, as the new CEO of Doosan Industrial Vehicles. Now part of Doosan Bobcat, Doosan Industrial Vehicles offers a wide range of material handling equipment, including forklift, warehouse equipment and downstream businesses.
Founded in 1968, Doosan Industrial Vehicles was the first company to produce forklifts in Korea, and is now the market leader with an unrivalled share of the Korean forklift market, which has been growing at an average annual rate of 7% since 2015.
Doosan Industrial Vehicles boasts diverse product lines including 1.5 to 30 t engine forklifts, 1 to 5 t electric forklifts and logistics equipment for warehouses. In line with the growing trend towards digital transformation and the sharing economy, Doosan Industrial Vehicles has been running a ‘downstream’ business that provides total services comprising forklift rental, used equipment sales and vehicle maintenance services since 2018.
Doosan Industrial Vehicles is expanding its business portfolio based on new technologies such as a real-time data collection, utilization and automation system equipped with Lin-Q, a telematics system developed by Doosan Industrial Vehicles.
According to Doosan Industrial Vehicles, the company is expecting annual sales in 2021 to surpass KRW 1 trillion (743 million EUR) for the first time since the business was founded, as sales volumes surge due to increased demand for Doosan Industrial Vehicles products in North America and elsewhere.
Following Doosan Industrial Vehicle’s incorporation as one of its subsidiaries, Doosan Bobcat anticipates the creation of synergistic effects driven by deeper cost reduction and stronger dealer networks, coupled with the expansion of its product portfolio and enhanced organizational influence.
