News Releases
Toyota Industries to Acquire Bastian Solutions LLC to Bolster Materials Handling Solutions Business in North America
[Translation]
Toyota Industries Corporation (President: Akira Onishi, “Toyota Industries”) announces that it has concluded an agreement with major North American materials handling systems integrator*1 Bastian Solutions LLC (“Bastian”) to acquire the company. The acquisition of Bastian signify Toyota Industries’s full-scale entry into the North American materials handling solutions industry amid the e-commerce boom.
Toyota Industries is the world’s No. 1*2 lift truck manufacturer in terms of global market share and continues to solidify and expand its lift truck and related businesses. In the materials handling solutions field, Toyota Industries delivers optimal materials handling systems to solve the individual challenges of each customer. The company has applied its monozukuri-based manufacturing and materials handling expertise to steadily expand the development and operation of warehouse logistics, mostly for domestic logistics centers and other facilities.
The e-commerce market, where people buy goods and services through online shops, has blossomed in recent years. The North American e-commerce market alone was valued at $483 billion in 2014 and is projected to expand 1.5 times over the next four years to some $721 billion *3 by 2018. At logistics sites, customers are requiring increasingly sophisticated solutions to manage growing shipment volumes, handle diversified packaging, and greatly accelerate processing. Amid these trends, the North American materials handling solutions business is expected to grow sustainably into the future.
Bastian is a U.S.-based materials handling systems integrator. The company has superior expertise in the development of software to control and manage materials handling systems at logistics centers and is a leader in combining hardware and software, system development, networking, and maintenance into optimal end-to-end solutions solving all the logistics challenges of its customers.
This acquisition enables Toyota Industries to strengthen its materials handling solutions business in North America, with Bastian as its core of operations, and sets the stage for the expansion of business through a broad range of large-scale projects across the Americas.
1. Acquisition Overview
| 1) Method | Acquisition of all Bastian’s shares by the subsidiary |
|---|---|
| 2) Cost | Approximately $260 million |
| 3) Scheduled closing date | April 3, 2017 |
2. Bastian Profile
| 1) Company name | Bastian Solutions LLC |
|---|---|
| 2) Headquarters Location | Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.A. |
| 3) Establishment | 1952 |
| 4) Representative | Bill Bastian II |
| 5) Business activities | Materials handling systems integrator |
| 6) Sales | Approximately $ 225 million (estimate for 2016) |
| 7) Employees | 579 (as of December 2016) |
| 8) Main shareholder | Bill Bastian II |
3. Other
The completion of this transaction requires the approval of antimonopoly authorities and the fulfillment of other general preconditions.
*1 Systems integrators perform materials handling systems engineering in accordance with customer needs, procure most equipment from outside suppliers, and deliver systems as a turnkey package.
*2 Based on World Industrial Truck Statistics (WITS) and research by Toyota Industries
*3 Based on statistics from Markets and Markets