The appointment of three new dealers in South America in recent months has positioned South African heavy equipment manufacturer and ADT specialist, Bell Equipment, to expand its footprint and market share on the continent. Raico SA and Seijiro Yazawa Iwai (SYI), two Liebherr dealers, have been appointed in the mining-focused countries of Chile and Venezuela respectively while REPAS Sociedad Anónima, a Hyundai dealer, has been appointed in Argentina.
Bell Equipment Regional Marketing Manager, Llewellyn Roux says: “We have appointed like-minded companies that have proven capacity to support a growing machine population with spare parts and dedicated service. These are well established dealers with existing sales and support networks that have their own rental fleets as well as direct sales. We have also purposely aligned with existing dealers in the region that have a full range of loading tools. By adding our Bell trucks to their offering, these dealers are now able to deliver a quality full line solution to their customers.”
RAICO’s Cristóbal Alexandroff said: “We are very happy to be able to add a world class brand such as Bell to our product offering. Our philosophy as RAICO SA has always been to ‘sell the lowest cost per handled ton with a customer service oriented structure,’ and this is exactly what Bell offers. We believe that the Bell ADTs are a perfect match for our earthmoving and mining portfolio and will open up opportunities with business areas, customers and tenders that we couldn’t previously tackle. These trucks will also be an important addition to our rental fleet. We feel that we are a part of the strong reliable support, for Bell Equipment’s strong reliable machines.”
Vice President of SYI, Mitsuru M Yazawa commented: “We are happy to bring our partnership with Bell a step forward, allowing us to strengthen our product portfolio for our Heavy Machinery Division. Our company’s philosophy is to accompany products from first class manufacturers with a very solid service operation: factory trained/customer oriented technicians, service vehicles, tools and infrastructure. We look forward to a long term and successful relationship.”
Meanwhile, Repas SA, which has 50 years of machine trading experience in Argentina, entered into the mining and primary rock production segment in recent years and a partnership will Bell was a natural business progression. Repas SA Vice President, Pablo Schulzen explains: “Our family-owned board took the decision to enter this segment influenced by market demand and the growth of Hyundai Heavy Industries and Terex – our long term and internationally renowned alliances. This new challenge includes gaining market penetration for our new players, such as Terex Finlay crushers and screens, Doosan breakers and drills and now Bell ADTs, which will transport from the blast to crush. The first Bell B30E has arrived in Argentina and we expect to have it working in one of the country’s leading quarries in due course. It is our hope to have success in this new challenge and to be part of the new and successful South American Bell network.”
Bell said the new dealer appointments come at an opportune time considering SNL Metals & Mining data, which shows planned capital spending in the South American mining sector increased by almost US$50 billion from October 2015 to April 2016. Roux says: “We saw signs of this at Bauma 2016 in April where we noticed a large number of South American visitors on our stand as well as representation from all our dealers, which was very pleasing and exciting.”
Bell Equipment has a strong history and brand awareness in South America through its appointed dealer, Latin Equipment, which has sold the OEM’s Tri-Wheeler forestry and agricultural products in Chile and Argentina for many years. This footprint is currently growing with expansion into the sugarcane farming areas in the north of the continent. However, the opportunity to market the company’s core product in South America, the ADT, only presented itself in 2013, when a distribution agreement to sell Bell ADTs in the Americas under the John Deere label came to an end.
Since then Bell says it has actively pursued the South American market with the appointment in 2014 of Mercovil, a Hyundai dealer in Colombia, the continent’s third largest economy behind Brazil and Argentina. The appointment of MS Sales and Services in Panama followed in 2015 to cover the Central Americas and Caribbean.
To fully support its dealer development and ensure a high standard of customer service Bell Equipment will undertake sales and technical support training during the course of the year. The company’s International Product Support team will similarly be conducting ‘First-of-Family’ machine handovers, coinciding with the 100-hour service of machines already in the field, to provide hands-on training. Technicians from the dealerships will also be sent to Bell Equipment’s South African factory for additional training.