CLAAS recently celebrated two critical milestones in their expansion efforts: A ribbon cutting on the permanent location of Canada West Harvest Centre in Emerald Park, just outside of Regina, as well as the opening of an interim location in Saskatoon.
In 2011, the Big Dealer Report showed 22 Canadian dealers with 5 or more locations. These 22 dealer groups accounted for a total of 206 farm equipment dealerships in Canada with 234 total locations.
The facility upgrade increases the shop, parts storage and showroom by more than three times the size of the previous dealership. The dealership has also added staff to enhance the customer experience.
A new $1.4 million office, parts and shop building in Sunnyside, Wash., will eventually be the new home for Central Machinery Sales, a 4-store Case IH dealer currently located on Scoon Road in Sunnyside.
With Finning International's acquisition of Kramer this past May, the fraternity of Caterpillar construction equipment dealerships in Canada became even more elite. This move leaves only eight CAT dealers operating 100 locations throughout the entire country. Nearly all of these are owned and operated by only three dealers, Finning and Toromont, both of which are publically held, as well as Hewitt Equipment.
Headwinds created by lower commodity prices and a strong U.S. dollar continued to challenge ag equipment manufacturers through the first half of this year.
North American large ag equipment sales declines continued in July. 4WD tractors lead the dropoff with sales down 30.1% year-over-year, followed by row-crop tractors at down 22.9% and combines sales declined 22% vs. the same period last year, according to the latest unit sales figures released by the Assn. of Equipment Manufacturers on Aug. 11.
Crop sprayer manufacturer Exel Industries has reported some easing of the sharpest drop in sales it has experienced since 1991. Revenues from sprayer sales in the group’s March-to-May third quarter were still off 6.4%, but look more encouraging than the 17% rolling shortfall for the 12 months to the end of May.
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In this episode of On the Record, brought to you by Associated Equipment Distributors, we take an initial look at the Dealer Business Outlook & Trends Report and what dealers are forecasting for 2025.