JCB announced July 20 it will acquire Germany-based Vibromax Compaction Equipment. JCB expects the transaction, which is subject to regulatory approval, to be completed in early September.
The new company would be called JCB Vibromax and would be managed as part of the JCB Group with local management retained in Germany and North America. Products would carry the brand “JCB Vibromax,” along with the JCB logo.
“There is a great deal of synergy between JCB and Vibromax,” said John Patterson, managing director and chief executive of the JCB Group. “Vibromax has been privately owned with a culture very similar to JCB and an understanding of our values.” The Vibromax products will expand JCB’s construction equipment range, Patterson continued.
Vibromax manufactures single-drum soil compactors, vibratory tandem rollers, trench rollers and light equipment such as tampers and plate compactors.
The Vibromax brand originated in Dusseldorf, Germany, as the name of the Losenhausen Company’s line of vibratory compaction rollers, plates and tampers. In 1970, Houston-based Tenneco acquired Losenhausen and the management of the company was assigned to J.I. Case Company, a wholly owned unit of Tenneco. Tenneco bought the Weller Company, a German manufacturer of heavy rollers, in 1973, adding to the Losenhausen product line. Losenhausen was re-named Case-Vibromax.
In 1992, Case sold the Vibromax product line to Pressluft-Franz, Case’s largest compaction equipment dealer in Germany. Headquartered in Dusseldorf, the company was re-named Vibromax 2000. Pressluft-Franz established a wholly owned subsidiary, Vibromax 2000 (USA) in Racine, Wis., to manage North American marketing and distribution.
Members of the Vibromax 2000 management team opted to purchase the company in 1995. The name of the company in Germany became Vibromax Compaction Equipment; the U.S. company was renamed Vibromax America. Production facilities are centered at the company’s 279,000-square-foot plant in Gatersleben, Germany. Major sales offices are located in Dusseldorf, Germany, Singapore and Racine, Wisconsin.
Based in Staffordshire, England, JCB is one of the world’s top five construction equipment manufacturers, according to a company press release, and has 14 plants on four continents.
