Toyota Industries Corporation (Tico) signed an agreement to acquire Vanderlande, creating a big global supplier of material handling solutions, with a complete range from manual to full warehouse automation. The transaction signifies Tico’s strategic ambition to increase its presence in automated material handling. Vanderlande was founded in The Netherlands in 1949, and has today customers in more than 105 countries all over the world, with local facilities in 30 of them, and is specialized in value-added logistic process automation at airports and in the parcel market, as well as a supplier for automated warehouses.
Vanderlande will retain its name and corporate identity, as well as continue its operations as a standalone entity from the same locations worldwide. The acquisition complements Tico’s current offering by providing a full range of automated material handling solutions, also opening a strong strategic match in the company’s extensive sales and service networks, with a better global coverage across almost all of the markets with automation needs. Following the transaction, Norio Wakabayashi, managing officer for Tico, has been designated chairman of Vanderlande’s supervisory board.