Insight Leasing acquires Russian sales subsidiary of warehouse equipment manufacturer Jungheinrich
MOSCOW. Feb 17 (Interfax) - The Russian leasing group Insight Leasing has acquired the local assets of the German manufacturer of warehouse loading equipment, Jungheinrich AG.
According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, the deal to acquire 100% of the shares of Jungheinrich Forklift Technology LLC by the group was closed on February 12. The press service of the Russian leasing company confirmed to Interfax that the transaction had taken place, noting that the acquired company has been renamed Forklift Technology (FT) LLC. Jungheinrich AG also confirmed the sale of its Russian subsidiary on its website. In a brief press release, the company said that the completion of the transaction marked the end of its operations in the Russian market.
Previously, at the end of June last year, Jungheinrich AG said on its website that it was conducting negotiations on the sale of the Russian business with three Russian investors. The company's assets under the discussed deal were valued significantly below the book value at the end of 2024, it said. For the deal to be approved by the Russian government commission for controlling foreign investments, the price of the German company's local business was not to exceed 40% of the market value determined by a Russian appraiser.
The Russian representative office of Jungheinrich AG (now FT LLC), according to its accounting reports, had been steadily increasing its net profit since 2020. It amounted to almost 2.5 billion rubles in 2024, up 24.8% compared to 2023. The company's revenue in the year before last was 13.7 billion rubles (+43.9% compared to 2023).
Jungheinrich supplied various types of warehouse equipment to Russian logistics operators and retailers including loaders, trolleys, stackers, reach trucks, tow trucks, order pickers and others. Since the early 2000s, the Russian subsidiary of Jungheinrich operated as an official importer, and in 2023 began promoting its own sub-brand, Jhlift.
According to its reporting, the company has begun cooperating with the Chinese manufacturer of lifting and loading equipment, Hangcha, since 2023, and through this has replaced the main line of products sold on the Russian market.
"The presence of a main product led to recovery growth in the company's turnover from sales of new serial equipment from 2.9 billion rubles in 2023 to 6.4 billion rubles in 2024 (+121%). However, in quantitative terms, the company still sold 39% fewer units than in the pre-crisis reference year of 2021. This is affected by the increasingly intensifying competition from Chinese manufacturers who have entered the Russian market to replace departed brands, as well as the lack of exclusive rights to sell equipment from the Chinese manufacturer Hangcha," the company's reporting said.
Jungheinrich AG is one of the leading European manufacturers of warehouse equipment, headquartered in Hamburg. The company began dealer sales in Russia in the early 1990s. The legal entity of the local Moscow representative office, consolidated by Insight Group, was registered in 2003.
Insight Leasing Group includes the companies DeltaLeasing, Fleet Finance, Fleet Autoleasing, and the car rental and operational leasing service RexRent. These assets were acquired from a number of Western companies leaving the Russian market, including Deere, Siemens and Renault. Insight Leasing LLC was spun off at the end of 2024 as a result of restructuring from the IG Insight, created in 2022 by former top managers of PJSC SFI .
