Konecranes and Meidensha Corporation (Meiden), a Japanese company, entered into a joint venture agreement concerning the hoist business in Japan on November 6 2002.
Under the agreement, Konecranes was granted a call option to increase its holding in MHS by 16%. The call option was exercisable before March 31 2008.
Meiden earlier held 51% and Konecranes 49% of the shares in the joint venture company MHS. Konecranes has signed an agreement to exercise the call option to acquire an additional 16% interest.
MHS has been marketing the MXT branded hoist in Japan since April 2003 in parallel with conventional MHS hoists, and holds approximately 10% of the electric wire rope hoist market in Japan. The MXT hoist is based on Konecranes’ CXT hoist technology. By increasing its shareholding in MHS up to 65%, Konecranes targets to increase its presence in the large Japanese hoist market as well as in Japanese export markets.
