Ever Star Industries, which has been trading as PowerStar South Africa and is the local distributor of Chinese trucks manufactured by PowerStar Group, officially announced its restructuring at a press conference held last month at the Electra Mining Africa Exhibition, in Johannesburg.

The restructuring will see Ever Star Industries become the holding company for the Powerstar brand of trucks, while it will also usher in the addition of three new brands to the Ever Star Industries portfolio, Ever Star Industries CEO Bob Wang told delegates at the press conference.

The three new brands that will be included in the portfolio, and to which Ever Star Industries will have the exclusive distributor rights, are the entire ranges of Shantui Construction Machinery and Inner Mongolia North Hauler Joint Stock Company, better know as NHL, as well as the PowerLand F3T 3042 Truck Tractor and F3C 3034 Tipper vehicles.

Ever Star Industries sales and aftermarket GM Mark Beukes believes the merger is a good decision because, although Ever Star Industries has a good dealer network that is performing well, it needs additional throughput and a wider vehicle and equipment offering.

Mergers Mergers have also become a common trend among many European and North American companies to gain the obvious benefits from multibrand franchise, “much the same as we are doing now”, he told delegates.

“This merger will also enable us to obtain correctly specified vehicles suited to Southern African operating conditions to fill the gaps in our existing product portfolio. In terms of our truck product offering, we already had a short haul and long haul truck but needed a medium haul vehicle, and in terms of tipper trucks, we also had a gap that needed to be filled,” said Beukes.

Ever Star Industries will be the new distributor for Shantui Construction Machinery, and will thus expand its market reach in the mining and construction segments, as opposed to the truck market alone.

Meanwhile, the addition of the NHL TR100 dump truck will enable Ever Star Industries to offer a range of rigid dump trucks with capacities of between 35 t and 330 t.

Beukes highlights that all of the above products will enjoy the same level of sale and service that PowerStar customers have come to expect and enjoy, the difference will be that Ever Star Industries will only play the role of the distributor and not the original-equipment manufacturer.

He further believes that the new structure will complete Ever Star Industries’ new, wide range market offering in the construction and mining sectors.