Bulgarian Crane Rental Company Maritza Acquired by Felbermayr

With effect from 31st of May, Felbermayr has taken over the Bulgarian crane rental company Maritza. This will enable Felbermayr to further strengthen its position in South-Eastern Europe and, in parallel, to start renting out working platforms in Bulgaria.

In crane and platform rental, Felbermayr is currently well established in Europe with about 600 mobile and crawler cranes as well as 4,000 working platforms and forklifts. The Austrian family-owned company has been active in Bulgaria with its crane rental business since 2007. “At that time, we started this subsidiary together with another one in Romania,” reports CEO Horst Felbermayr of the holding company of the same name, adding that the two national companies have developed very well. In Bulgaria, this was guaranteed not least by the commitment of Valentin Radev. He will retire shortly. His responsibilities will be taken over by the two Maritza managing directors Yordan Georgiev and Angel Yankov.

“Through the takeover of the crane rental company Maritza, we now have the opportunity to further strengthen our market position in Bulgaria, whereby a further goal is to also establish our business field of platform rental in Bulgaria in the course of the expansion,” says the Managing Director responsible on the part of Felbermayr Transport- und Hebetechnik, Peter Stöttinger.

The crane rental company Maritza currently consists of the companies Maritza Manpower OOD and Maritza Avtokranove OOD and is operationally active in Plovdiv with 21 employees. The city, located in central Bulgaria, is one of the most important industrial centres in south-eastern Europe with a population of around 350,000. The Maritza fleet currently consists of six cranes with lifting capacities from 40t to 160t. The companies will continue to operate under the Maritza name.

From left to right : Yordan Georgiev (Maritza crane rental), DI Horst Felbermayr (Felbermayr Holding), Angel Yankov (Maritza crane rental) Mag. Peter Stöttinger (Felbermayr transport- and lifting technology)

Currently, Felbermayr operates its Bulgaria activities from the site in Haskovo, which is located about 90 kilometres southeast of Plovdiv. “With the retirement of our long-time division manager Valentin Radev, we will move the existing branch to the Maritza Group in Plovdiv,” reports Stöttinger and, based on talks, is confident that the 18 Felbermayr employees from Haskovo will also support the move and remain loyal to the company. This means that Felbermayr will then be active in Bulgaria’s second-largest city with around a dozen cranes with lifting capacities of up to 250t and 41 employees.