UpRight’s parent company, The Tanfield Group Plc, has purchased Snorkel International.

Darren Kell, chief executive of Tanfield and UpRight, said, “This will create a new, full line manufacturer of high quality aerial work platforms, which will be a truly global force in the industry.”

The combination of Snorkel’s volume production capability in the United States, plus UpRight’s existing facilities in the United Kingdom and America, will create a business with a global manufacturing footprint.

UpRight has wholly owned sales and service centres in Japan and California, along with a network of more than 150 independent distributors. These dealers are largely concentrated in Western and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia-Pacific region and Russia and the Baltic States. Snorkel covers the USA through direct sales and service centres.

Kell said, “UpRight’s range of small to mid-sized electric scissors and booms is a perfect fit with Snorkel’s range of larger booms and rough terrain scissors, together providing a comprehensive product offering to rival any of the major access manufacturers.

“There is a huge, immediate opportunity to cross-sell UpRight products into Snorkel customers and Snorkel products to our existing UpRight client base.”

The sale will be finalized by the end of July, following a meeting of Tanfield’s shareholders.

Tanfield then intends to invest in Snorkel’s manufacturing facilities in the USA and New Zealand, to accelerate further sales growth.

Al Havlin, CEO and president of Snorkel International, said: “Snorkel’s fantastic product range and people made it an attractive proposition to a lot of companies.

“But we chose to sell Snorkel to Tanfield because it has already demonstrated its commitment to aerial work platforms through the successful growth of UpRight. The management at Tanfield showed with UpRight that they know how to grow a good business and have the investment capabilities to take Snorkel to the next level.”