Gough Group moves ahead with concrete deal

Monday, 9 October 2017

Gough Group chief executive Karl Smith, left, and Ben Gough, executive director outside the company's rebuild centre opened in 2013.

Christchurch-based Gough Group has signed an exclusive dealership agreement for SANY concrete equipment in New Zealand and Australia.

The deal comes as the $400 million turnover company emerges from a period of change and an ownership dispute by the Gough family.

Ho Hogg, business manager concrete products, at Gough Group which has set up a new division.

The SANY agreement may be one of the last big executive decisions by Karl Smith, who will retire as chief executive in a few weeks to take up other opportunities.

Another change at the top table was the appointment earlier this year of former Griffins chief executive Allison Barrass as a director, the first woman on the board since executive director Ben Gough's grandmother Margaret led it in the 1950s.

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The new deal with SANY also comes as Gough Group celebrates a record 455 sales of Caterpillar heavy equipment machinery.

The SANY deal involves the creation of a new business unit, Gough Industrial Solutions, formerly called Gough Engineering.

Ho Hogg, the business manager concrete products, said that the creation of the new business unit and signing of the agreement meant his team could offer latest solutions to the local concrete and infrastructure industries.

'Gough Engineering was well-established as a leader in the truck concrete mixer segment with a reputation for superior technology, operator-friendliness, reliability, precision and safety, and this now carries over to Gough Industrial Solutions.

SANY is a major global supplier of concrete machinery, boasting quality, easy operation, and reliability.

It supplies a range of truck-mounted concrete pumps, trailer pumps, line pumps, placing booms, truck mixers, batching plants and mortar pumps.

SANY claims to be the leading concrete machinery manufacturer with 25 manufacturing bases, more than 100 offices, and 8000 suppliers.

In China, SANY has six industry parks and also has research and development centres around the world, as well as manufacturing plants in the US, Germany, India and Brazil.

Its products are exported to 150 countries.

Gough Industrial Solutions has bases in Christchurch, Auckland and Melbourne and provides sales and technical support.

Gough Industrial Solutions has taken on two new team-members from SANY to support the products locally.

Gough Group is a private company providing machinery to the infrastructure, mining, forestry, transport, and power system industries.

It has been operating for more than 80 years.