Industry Heavy equipment Headquarters Bulle Founder Hans Liebherr Number of employees 40,839 Type Aktiengesellschaft | Website The Liebherr Group Revenue 8.823 billion EUR (2014) Founded 1949, Kirchdorf, Germany Net income 316 million EUR (2014) | |
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Key people Isolde Liebherr and Willi Liebherr, CEO & Chairman Products Construction & Agriculture Machinery, refrigerators Profiles | ||
Portrait of the liebherr group
The Liebherr Group is a large equipment manufacturer based in Switzerland.
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It consists of over 130 companies organized into ten Divisions: Earthmoving, Mining, Mobile Cranes, Tower Cranes, Concrete Technology, Maritime Cranes, Aerospace and Transportation Systems, Machine Tools and Automation Systems, Domestic Appliances, and Components. It has a worldwide workforce of over 41,000, with 8.8 billion euros in revenue for 2014. By 2007, it was the world's largest crane company. Established in 1949 by Hans Liebherr in Kirchdorf an der Iller, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, the business is still entirely owned by the Liebherr family. Isolde and Willi (son of Hans) Liebherr are the chief executive and chairman of the Bulle, Switzerland-based Liebherr-International AG, and several other family members are actively involved in corporate management. In 2005, Forbes magazine listed them as billionaires. In 1974, the Franklin Institute awarded Hans Liebherr the Frank P. Brown Medal.
Portrait of the liebherr group short version
History
Starting by building affordable tower cranes, Liebherr expanded into making aircraft parts – it is a significant supplier to Europe's Airbus plane maker – and commercial chiller displays and freezers, as well as domestic refrigerators. The group also produces some of the world's biggest mining and digging machinery, including loaders, excavators and extreme-size dump trucks. The T 282 B is the world's 2nd biggest truck (after BelAZ 75710). The group's nine-axle mobile crane, the LTM 11200-9.1 – with a 100 metres (328 ft) telescopic boom – in 2007 received the heavy-lifting industry's Development of the Year award for being the world's most powerful example of such a machine.
Over the years, the family business has grown into a group of varied companies and has locations in many countries, including Germany, Australia, Britain, Ireland, and the United States. Since 1958, its Irish factory in Killarney, Co. Kerry has built container cranes, exporting them worldwide through the port of Fenit. In Australia, the group in 2013 commenced an AU$65 million expansion of their local headquarters in Adelaide. The development includes adding a new three-storey office, workshops, warehouse, component plant, and distribution centre to the Para Hills facility. In the U.S., the group in 2012 started spending US$45.4 million (about €34.1 million) on a three-year renovation and expansion of its Newport News, Virginia factory, offices and warehouse. The company sought to increase its production there beyond 100 mining trucks a year. On 19 February 2013, representatives from the Commonwealth of Virginia and the cities of Newport News and Hampton announced that they would make grants and incentives available for transport improvement, training, and property investment.
In April 2014, Liebherr announced they would invest 160 million euros at its production site in Bulle, Switzerland.
Products
The current line of products manufactured by the company includes:
Liebherr currently has the world's most powerful and tallest crawler crane in LR 13000. It is capable of lifting 3000 tonnes and has a maximum pulley height of 248 metres. This is achieved with the attachment of an additional 126m-long lattice jib to the 120m main boom. The height of the crawler chassis is an additional 2m, which gives the lattice structure a total height of 248m. The maximum hoisting height is 245m and the total ballast used is 1900 tons, including 1500 tons of derrick ballast.