Hochtief sells rental division to Zeppelin

Hochtief has sold the majority of its Streif Baulogistik rental business to Zeppelin Group, the Caterpillar dealer in Germany. Zeppelin will merge the Streif business with its Zeppelin Rental division.

The deal, for an undisclosed price, will see Zeppelin Rental take on 230 Streif employees and acquire its power, portable accommodation and project planning and logistics operations.

Zeppelin is acquiring Streif's German and Austrian operations, with locations in Essen, Hamburg, Berlin, Frankfurt, Cologne, Leipzig, Munich and Vienna.

Not include in the acquisition is Streif’s formwork and tower crane rental operations, including a fleet of more than 500 cranes. Hochtief said it was “considering its options” for these businesses.

For Zeppelin Rental the acquisition will give it greater exposure to one of Germany’s largest contractors – a significant proportion of its activities were with parent company Hochtief – and expand the services it can offer in project planning and logistics.

"The project services of Streif Baulogistik complements our portfolio perfectly," said Wolfgang Hahnenberg, head of Zeppelin’s Rental Business Unit and chairman of Rental Zeppelin.

"We will strengthen and expand our expertise in managing complex construction and industrial projects and will continue to expand our construction logistics and project services further."

Marcelino Fernández Verdes, CEO of Hochtief, said; “With this sale, we are clearly making further progress in our strategy of concentrating on our core business". Hochtief said it expected the sale to result in a small positive effect on profits.

Streif Baulogistik was ranked as the 27^th largest equipment rental business in Europe last year in the IRN100 listing, with estimated rental revenues of €135 million. This compares with Zeppelin Rental’s 2013 sales of €288 million.