The German based Atlas Group has found a new owner almost four months after it filed for insolvency. Strategic investor Buhler Versatile is reported to have acquired all assets of the Atlas operating companies. These include Atlas GmbH, Atlas Spare Parts GmbH, and Atlas Kompakt GmbH. Asko acquired a 97 percent stake in Buhler Industries at the end of 2023 – through its Başak Traktör subsidiary – and gained full ownership in April last year.
Buhler Versatile (officially part of Buhler Industries Inc.) is the only Canadian manufacturer of agricultural tractors and was internationally renowned for mass-producing the world’s first articulated four-wheel-drive tractors in 1966. While the business is based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the company is now a subsidiary of the Turkish engineering conglomerate ASKO Holding.
Buhler Versatile was acquired from the Russian Rostselmash farm machinery company in 2023 and is now part of the Turkish Asko Group, a family-run industrial holding company with more than 2,500 employees, already active in the agricultural and construction machinery sectors. The Asko Group already produces the Turkish Başak Traktör brand.
With this acquisition, the Turkish Asko Group strengthens its position in the European market. Atlas has a strong product range in the areas of mobile excavators and loading cranes. It is possible that the company is interested in Atlas forestry cranes for Canada, and the regular loader cranes for its home market, which has major growth potential. The Atlas excavators could kick off a new business in Canada under the Versatile brand, while adding to Asko’s own excavator product line in its home and local markets under the MST brand. Asko said in a statement that the acquisition of Atlas represents a strategic step to expand the group’s presence in Europe and to combine Atlas’s construction-machinery heritage, dealer network and operational capabilities.
The Atlas excavator range is handled in Ireland by Peter Hanlon Engineering, Bellview, 1 Station Road, Leixlip, Kildare.
The loader company Atlas from Ganderkesee no longer has any connection with the Weycor wheel loader manufacturer Atlas Weyhausen, which is represented in Ireland by Seamus Vaughan Tractors Limited, Kilnamartyra, Macroom, Co. Cork.
