The story
Manitowoc Cranes began as a business venture by Charles West and Elias Gunnell. At the time, they headed the Manitowoc Dry Dock Company, now The Manitowoc Company, Inc. After World War I, The Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company was looking to diversify their business.
After observing the Moore Speedcrane, manufactured in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Charles West thought cranes were a way to expand the business and use his shipyard's machine shops. In 1925, The Moore Speedcrane Company was in debt, and Charles West was willing to help them build cranes to help provide cash for the struggling company. All patents were signed over to Manitowoc as a liability; however, they would not sell any machines under the Manitowoc name.
The Speedcrane in 1925 was a steam-driven, 15-ton capacity crane that sat on four wheels. Ten models were built by Manitowoc from this basic model. Eventually, after listening to customer feedback, Moore redesigned the crane and installed a gasoline engine. Another major change was the replacement of the wheels with a crawler base that allowed for better traction. The first model from the redesigned Speedcrane was a Model 100.
The Moore Speedcrane Company continued to introduce new models with innovative features; however, this put them deeper into debt. In 1928, when it was apparent that Moore was not going to be able to pay back the debts owed to Manitowoc, they began to manufacture and sell Speedcranes with its own sales force.
The Manitowoc Crane and Manitowoc Food Service Groups separated into two stand alone companies in March 2016. Manitowoc Cranes Stock Symbol MTW and Manitowoc Food Service stock Symbol MFS.
Formation
In 1994, Manitowoc acquired Femco Machine Company, a manufacturer of crane parts. Femco and Manitowoc Re-manufacturing were consolidated to form the Aftermarket Group. In March 2003, Manitowoc sold Femco Machine Company to a group of private investors
Manitex, a boom truck line, was formed by Manitowoc in 1983. Manitowoc acquired two more boom truck companies - USTC in 1998 and Pioneer in 2000. These three brands were combined to form Manitowoc Boom Truck. In 2003, Manitowoc sold off the Manitowoc Boom Truck brand to Quantum Heavy Equipment, LLC.
West-Manitowoc was formed as a separate division of the Manitowoc Corporation in 1994 as the brainchild of Fred Butler, the President of the corporation at that time. The primary purpose of this division was to re-enter the manufacture and marketing of smaller lattice boom crawler cranes, (130 tons and under capacity); a size class that had been dropped from Manitowoc Cranes product line a few years earlier. In its relatively short existence, the West division achieved a leading market position in the U.S. for the 100 ton class of crawler cranes, and became the corporation's leading "Economic Value Added (EVA)" contributor. After re-establishing a market position for the company in the smaller class of crawler cranes, the West-Manitowoc division was merged with Manitowoc Cranes in 1998.
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Manitowoc acquired the Potain brand in 2001, followed by Grove and National Crane in 2002. The announcement to acquire Grove Worldwide was made in March 2002 at CONEXPO in Las Vegas, Nevada. Manitowoc purchased Grove for $271 million.
In 2007, Manitowoc announced their acquisition of Shirke, an India-based Potain manufacturer and distributor since 1982.
From Wikipedia’s article on Manitowoc Cranes, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5