THE restructuring of the world machinery manufacturing market has continued with the news today that AGCO – the owner of the Massey Ferguson, Fendt and Valtra brands – has acquired Dutch-based Lely's forage-making equipment division.

Family-owned Lely said today that it intends to concentrate on its dairy hardware and software business, majoring on robotic milkers and feeding systems.

The news will send further shock waves through the dealer network in the UK as there has already been considerable restructuring within the past six months. The takeover of Lely will add further question marks to any current AGCO dealership with links to other manufacturers of how it will affect their business.

AGCO already sells forage-making equipment through its main brands of Massey Ferguson and Fendt and it looks as if it will be cherry-picking the best bits of the Lely hay and silage making equipment, which includes balers, forage wagons, mowers, tedders and swathers.

A cross-over of inventory means that Lely's manufacturing facility at Maassluis, which makes mowers, tedders and rakes, will be run-down and will likely close in 2018.

That leaves the German factories in Wolfenbüttel (balers) and Waldstetten (loader wagons) to become the centre of AGCO's main ambitions for the acquisition after is has been subsumed into the AGCO fold.

For Lely, a family-owned company that started in grassland products in 1948, this is a big step in which, it said, it had the long-term future of its employees at its heart. The Lely Group is active in more than 60 countries and employs around 2000 people.

For AGCO, its CEO, Martin Richenhagen, said: “The integration of Lely’s industry leading competence in hay and forage technology will further strengthen AGCO’s full line product offering.”