The story
Founded by Carl von Linde in 2006.1
Foundation and beginnings
On 6 September 2006, Linde AG announced a new structure following the completion of its acquisition of BOC, with the gas and engineering businesses of the combined entity operating as The Linde Group and the materials handling businesses (Linde Material Handling, Still, and OM Carrelli Elevatori S.p.A.) operating as Kion Group from then on. Linde AG sold Kion Group to a partnership of KKR and Goldman Sachs Alternatives for approximately €4 billion.
Acquisitions and expansion abroad
In January 2009, Kion Group formed a China-based forklift manufacturing joint venture, Kion Baoli (Jiangsu) Forklift, with Jiangsu Shangqi Group and Jingjiang Baoli Forklift. In May 2010, Kion Group acquired full management control of Kion Baoli.
In March 2011, Kion Group and the Indian engineering company Voltas agreed to form a new joint venture, Voltas Materials Handling, consisting of the two companies' material handling equipment operations in India. Kion Group acquired Voltas' 34% shareholding in the venture in November 2012.
In August 2012, the China-based Shandong Heavy Industry's Weichai Power subsidiary agreed to acquire a 25% stake in Kion Group for €467 million, and a 70% majority stake in Kion's hydraulics business for €271 million.
In February 2013, Kion Group sold product rights for Linde brand's reach stacker, empty, and laden container handlers to Finnish crane manufacturer Konecranes for an undisclosed sum.
Initial public offering and further expansion
The company was listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange on 28 June 2013, and in September 2014, the company was admitted to the MDAX of the Frankfurt stock exchange. Also in September 2014, Voltas Material Handling was renamed Kion India. Since then, the company has been selling forklift trucks with electric drives, combustion engines and warehouse technology products under the Voltas and Baoli brands in India. The Belgian company Egemin was acquired in 2015, followed by the US-based company Retrotech in 2016. In June 2016, Kion Group acquired Dematic for €1.9 billion. In 2017, the Group headquarters with around 200 employees was relocated from Wiesbaden to a new development area at Frankfurt Airport. One year later, Kion opened the Kion Digital Campus in Frankfurt, where digital projects are developed and implemented.
In 2018, Kion Group expanded its presence in China and agreed a strategic partnership with EP Equipment Co. Ltd in the light-duty or "entry-level" warehouse equipment segmente. KION has acquired a minority stake in the Chinese truck manufacturer, which in the previous year, 2017, achieved record shipments of 50,000 units.
In July 2019, Kion Group and BMZ Holdings announced a 50/50 joint venture to manufacture lithium-ion batteries (80V, 48V) for the Kion Group's trucks at BMZ's manufacturing facility. In November, Kion India opened a production facility for diesel and electric forklift trucks as well as battery-powered pallet trucks and reach trucks on an area of around 25 hectares in Pune, India. In March 2020, Kion acquired the UK-based company Digital Applications International Limited (DAI) for around €123 million.
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Recent developments
In July 2021, Kion opened an industrial truck plant in Kołbaskowo near Szczecin, Poland, where counterbalance trucks for all brands in the Kion Industrial Trucks & Services segment are produced. In order to speed up delivery times, production of other product series, which had previously been manufactured exclusively in Xiamen, China, was also relocated to Kołbaskowo one year later.
In December 2021, Kion opened a counterbalance truck plant for the Kion companies Linde Material Handling and Baoli in Jinan, China on an area of around 223,000 square metres, which includes a research and development centre, a training centre and office space.
From Wikipedia’s article on KION Group, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5