Pon North America Rebrands its Five Companies as Equipment Depot

Oct. 7, 2008 – Pon North America has re-branded its U.S. rental group
as Equipment Depot, Don Moes, president of the Pon North America
material handling group and founder of Waco, Texas-based Equipment
Depot, said last week.

The Equipment Depot dealer
group is comprised of five regional dealerships — Waco-based Equipment
Depot; Forklifts Inc., in 1955 and based in Mechanicsburg, Pa.; Levee
Lift, founded in 1954 and based in Evansville, Ind.; Portman Equipment
Co., founded in 1960 and based in Cincinnati; the original Equipment
Depot, founded as Central Texas Clarklift in 1975, based in Waco,
Texas, and known as Equipment Depot since 1995; and Equipment Depot of
Illinois, founded as Material Handling Services in 1951 and based in
Chicago. The five companies will now use the Equipment Depot name.

“Operating
as Equipment Depot we now offer our customers access to more people,
products and services under one brand name at more than 40 locations in
12 states,” said Moes. “We believe this new name better reflects the
breadth of products and services we offer throughout our markets. Going
to market using a common name better reflects our ability to offer
customers more choices of new and used equipment, expanded services in
more places, and better access to national fleet services, rental
equipment, parts inventories and training expertise.”

The
dealerships sell, service, rent and provide parts and training for more
than 50 leading brands of forklifts, aerial lifts and construction
equipment. They offer factory, distribution center and warehouse
equipment solutions in all markets as well as farm equipment, rail car
movers, scrubbers, sweepers, tuggers and utility vehicles in selected
markets.

“Each of the five regional companies
contributes to Equipment Depot a rich heritage of providing outstanding
customer service and product support in its respective market for more
than 35 years each,” Moes added. “Each of these family-owned companies
became a leader in its markets. Each company takes pride in the
honesty, integrity and reliability it brings to its customers. These
are familiar and trusted names in our industry. In many cases our
multi-state customers have been working with more than one of our
operating companies but didn’t know they were all owned by one company.
As we expand our rental operations throughout our dealerships it will
make it easier for our customers to rent the products they need from
people they already know.”

Each operating
company offers a different product mix and a unique approach to its
market. All of the companies were acquired over the past 10 years by
Pon North America, a division of the Dutch trading company Pon Holdings
B.V. With more than 10,000 employees in 11 different countries, Pon
Holdings is one of the largest family-run businesses in the
Netherlands.

“While each company still makes
local decisions, they all draw on the financial resources, experience
and innovations from all of the operating companies in the group,” Moes
said. “They can select from a short-term rental fleet of more than
7,500 forklifts, scissorlifts, boomlifts, telehandlers, skid steers and
backhoes. With more than 1,750 employees, including more than 900
qualified and trained service technicians, Equipment Depot is uniquely
positioned to take care of the more than 26,500 customer-owned units
under service contract.”

In the past year the
Equipment Depot dealership group exceeded $420 million in sales. The
company had $114.7 million in rental volume in 2007 and is No. 21 on
the RER 100.