For Immediate Release

March 15, 2005

AmQuip to significantly boost tower crane fleet with major investment in Potain equipment

One of North America’s largest crane operating companies, AmQuip, has committed to a significant program of investment with the Manitowoc Crane Group for its Potain tower crane product line. Under the terms of the agreement, AmQuip will purchase a number of tower cranes each year, to significantly develop its fast-growing rental fleet.

This agreement marks one of the largest single tower crane purchases by a crane rental company in North America. The order represents over $30 million worth of Potain products and will establish AmQuip as one of the largest tower crane companies with the newest fleet in the U.S.

AmQuip is already well known in the fields of mobile crane and crawler crane rental and its fleet of mobile cranes is the third largest in the world. By developing a large fleet of tower cranes, AmQuip will have one of the most complete offerings of lifting services globally.

AmQuip’s CEO, Joseph L. Wesley Sr., says the arrangement with Potain marks the beginning of a new chapter in his company’s history.

“We’re always among the first to innovate in the crane industry, whether it be taking newly-launched machines or trying out new technology. By doing so, we’re able to offer quicker, safer and more cost-efficient lifting solutions to our customers. We’ll be bringing this philosophy to our tower crane division, which we believe will give us a competitive advantage,” he said. “We have an excellent reputation for mobile crane and crawler crane services, which we expect will help us develop the tower crane side of our business.”

AmQuip chose Potain as its primary partner in tower cranes after a carefully considered process. One of the key deciding factors for the company was the fact it already owns numerous cranes from other brands of the Manitowoc Crane Group, Wesley said.

“We have a number of Manitowoc crawler cranes and Grove mobile cranes, as well as boom trucks from National Crane, so the company is well known to us. Personally I have been dealing with people at Manitowoc since AmQuip was founded in 1967, so I have a good knowledge of the way they work and have developed close working relationships with many of their people. It was this trust, combined with the exceptional quality of the Potain product, which convinced us that Manitowoc Crane Group was the company we wanted to partner with.”

David Birkhauser, senior vice president for North American sales at Manitowoc Crane Group, said he was delighted AmQuip has chosen to partner with Potain for the expansion of its tower crane fleet.

“We’ve worked very hard with the Potain product in the past two years in North America and enjoyed great success with the range. This latest deal with AmQuip further demonstrates Potain as the premier tower crane brand in the United States. With a wide range of products for all applications and industry-leading support from Manitowoc Crane CARE, we see Potain continuing to capture more of the US market in the coming year.”