THE FOLLOWING ITEM HAS BEEN SUPPLIED TO US BY COLIN JAILLER, KNOWN TO MANY OF YOU, AND YET ANOTHER OF BH`S PROTEGE' S WHO HAS MADE GOOD IN HIS OWN RIGHT AFTER LEAVING THE COMPANY.
Colin`s input covers the uncertain period around 1980, when we were in a recession (!!!!!), and the General was trying to unload his construction equipment manufacturing business to anyone who would buy it, or so it appeared at the time. We have included it in "TEREX" section for obvious reasons.
Anyway, waiting in the wings was a BH trained entrepreneur, who from nowhere had got to somewhere, with the acquisition of several ailing European manufacturers, which had been revitalised very quickly, and now he was looking for the icing on the cake, or something very similar. We are of course talking about General Motors selling Terex, and IBH, under the leadership of Herr Horst-Dieter Esch, buying it.
The article takes the form of several newspaper items from late 1980, and then a closeup of IBH through the medium of the Annual Report of that year, made up in a form that will seem familiar to Hodgites, if you have been looking into BH Empire…..Herr Esch obviously took note of an awful lot during his time with BH in Europe & Canada.
Anyway, here are the articles, all from the Financial Times………… some are a little long & narrow, but not much we can do about that, and in chronological order.
THE ABOVE FROM SEPTEMBER 26TH, 1980, AND BELOW FROM THE NEXT DAY, 27TH….
September 30th article above, with the last one below from Ocober 4th 1980, and in 2 parts.
Now we have the Annual Report……note the world map, so reminiscent of the BH style, and also the photos of factories involved, plus many shots of the equipment. Not much else to show we hear you say, but still the same style……..
Now the men running it all……
….and their company standing…..
…..followed by the product (only covering what we did, as the rest went on & on)….
….and the map of course…..
Herr Esch and Roger Smith GM`s Chairman, signing up…..
….and then (top left) all the rest signing their P45`s (by the look on their faces)….notice Herr Esch is sitting, while all the Septics are having to stand…..nice touch that, shows who is in charge now.
A page now on his biggest dealer, and ex-employer !!
Images of the 2 main US factories, at Hudson & Cleveland, Ohio, Newhouse of course, and the last one is Terex do Brazil (thats in Brazil for anyone down on their geography).
Back to reason, we like this one, and have subtitled it W.M.C., to re-coin a phrase from the Bush & lapdog Blair era………….WEAPONS of MASS CONSTRUCTION.
The remainder are images from around the world, exhibitions involving IBH, and the products they supplied…….
One final thought….just say that it had all gone well for IBH, and they had prospered…..wonder how that might have affected the sell-out of their largest dealer a few years later in 1990, to the carrot crunchers !! We would have a guess that it might not have happened quite like that !!!!
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