Grove to stop making cranes in Sunderland

Grove Worldwide is to stop producing cranes at its Sunderland plant over the next few years. The Wearside manufacturer has already shed a number of jobs and is expected to eventually shed most of the Sunderland workforce as it phases out crane manufacturing.

A spokesman for Hanson, which has put the crane company up for sale with a price tag of œ400 million, maintained that the skills to build cranes were diminishing.

"We are trying to get the business right. The crane manufacturing business will decline to nothing in the long term."

In 1996 Grove Worldwide increased profitability by 50 per cent, to œ48 million from œ24 million in 1995, on sales of œ529 million.

Despite the axing of jobs in Sunderland, Hanson insists that the crane and access equipment division continues to turn in good results in 1997.

Hanson is currently in talks with various buyers who have been asked to sign a confidentiality agreement which insists that no information will be leaked to the press about talks and discussions for the purchase of Grove until Hanson has sold the business.

Caterpillar and Daewoo are rumoured to be interested in acquiring Grove Worldwide.

But Grove still plans to increase production of its Manlift product and major components for plant equipment.

"We are spending millions of pounds improving the Sunderland foundry to meet this switch of capacity," said the spokesman for the company.

Demand for heavy cranes has been falling because of the downturn in the equipment market, on which the Sunderland plant depends.

Another factor bearing on the planned job cuts is that parent company Hanson believes the business could prove more attractive to buyers if action is taken to reduce costs.

l Grove Worldwide is celebrating two anniversaries: 50 years of Grove and two years of Deutsche Grove with the launch of its new flagship model crane - the 250t GMK6250 manufactured in Wilhelmshaven, Germany.

Enormous power is the strength of the GMK6250. Its maximum capacity is 250t at three metre radius over the rear, without Superlift. The new crane also incorporates the Grove Electronic Control Operating System. This provides full electronic control of hydraulic pumps, engines and cylinders, controlling all crane movements.