McHale Plant Sales, one of Ireland’s leading distributors of construction, quarrying, recycling, forestry and agricultural equipment, is proud to announce that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Marubeni-Komatsu Ltd., the current distributor of Komatsu construction and utility equipment across the United Kingdom. To support the transition, Komatsu Europe will take a minority shareholding in McHale Plant Sales. Following completion of the transition (subject to regulatory approval), effective January 2026, the company plans to trade as McHale Komatsu in the UK.

This acquisition marks a significant milestone for McHale Plant Sales, strengthening its long-established partnership with Komatsu and expanding its footprint across the UK market. With this move, McHale Plant Sales will continue to deliver the world-renowned Komatsu product range, while developing after-sales service, parts supply, and customer support across the UK.

Commenting on the upcoming acquisition, Michael McHale, Chairman of McHale Plant Sales said:

“This is a proud moment for our team. The Komatsu brand has been central to our success in Ireland for many years, and with our enhanced distribution reach we are now in a position to bring our customer-focused approach, experience, and dedication to excellence to the UK. We look forward very much to working with our new colleagues to deliver on our plans.”

McHale Plant Sales will maintain all existing distribution branches, ensuring continuity of service for customers while investing further in customer support and drawing on McHale’s experience and strong reputation within the industry.

McHale Plant Sales remains fully committed to delivering support to its valued customers across the UK. As part of this commitment, the company will continue to honour all existing warranties and maintenance contracts, ensuring that service levels are maintained to the highest standards.

The appointment of McHale Plant Sales underlines Komatsu’s confidence in McHale as a trusted distributor, committed to supporting customers with high-quality equipment, advanced technology solutions, and best-in-class service.

 

About McHale Plant Sales Founded in 1952, McHale Plant Sales, owned by Michael McHale and Tim Shanahan, is the sole distributor of Komatsu construction equipment in Ireland, as well as other leading brands across the construction, forestry, and agricultural sectors. With decades of experience, McHale has built a reputation for excellence in customer service, technical expertise and innovative solutions.

 

About Komatsu Founded over a century ago, Komatsu today is a global leader in the manufacture of construction, mining, utility and forestry equipment. With a strong legacy of innovation, Komatsu products are trusted worldwide for their performance, durability, and advanced technology. The company’s global service and distributor networks support highly effective customer operations.”

 

With their appointment as Metso distributors in Ireland, Northern Ireland, and UK markets now fully operational – with headquarters in Tamworth and Edinburgh added to their Irish depots at Birdhill and Rathcoole – McHale Plant Sales has been expanding its footprint in all regions.

In Ireland, recent high-profile placements have seen a Lokotrack LT120 model supplied to Donal McCabe of McCabe Contractors, and a LT200 supplied to Enda McCabe Mile River for operation with Roadstone in Arklow.

Other big-name sales include a unit supplied to Drennans for service with Roadstone in Duleek.  Fixed units recently delivered include a static HP350e cone unit to Kilsaran, and a Metso GP330 cone model to an aggregates producer in Churchill, Co. Donegal.  In Northern Ireland a LT200 unit was supplied to first-time Metso buyer, Keenans of Derry.

Big UK sales have seen a Lokotrack LT116 supplied to Kent-based Gallagher, an LT96 jaw unit to Welsh buyer, Mason Brothers, a LT1110 impact unit to Surrey-based buyer Chambers, and LT1213s to Bristol-based Kelston Sparkes.

Commenting, McHale Sales Director, Denis McGrath said: “from a standing start in the UK little more than two years ago, we are pleased that the work we have been doing on behalf of Metso in Ireland can now be viewed in-step with that of our well-staffed and fully-functioning UK outlets”.

To build a team with knowledge of quarrying and aggregates and the expertise required to service customers within the sector – and to accomplish it over a two-year period, all from a standing start – was a challenge that many would consider challenging.

That was the task facing Metso’s UK distributor, McHale Plant Sales when, in April 2023, the Finnish manufacturer added to their responsibilities by appointing them Lokotrack distributors in English, Scottish, and Welsh markets.

Already Metso’s representatives in Ireland and Northern Ireland since 2015, the Tipperary-based distributor came to the UK with an in-depth knowledge of Metso and an established customer base that included some of Ireland’s and Europe’s leading concrete, aggregates, and civil works contractors.

Attributes of which Metso would have been aware were the company’s ‘customer-centric’ style, one described as ‘a flexible, can-do, available all-hours, and keep-the-customer-happy’ approach.

With a significant number of newcomers now added to their UK customer base, their Business Development Director, Darragh O’Driscoll confirms that the company ‘is now poised to expand Metso’s presence in the UK’.

Operating from headquarters in Tamworth, backed by a fully operational parts and sales base in Edinburgh – and with their recruitment process ‘virtually complete’ with only one or two positions yet to fill – O’Driscoll says: “we now have a top team on board, all geographically positioned, with the know-how to move our business forward”.

Directing operations on the ground in the UK is Metso Director UK, Morgan Grant, described by O’Driscoll as “a man highly experienced in all aspects of crushing and well-known to aggregates producers throughout the UK”.

 

UK and Ireland distributor for the Metso range of Lokotrack mobile crushers, McHale Plant Sales, has confirmed its intention to ‘engage fully’ in plans announced by the Finnish crusher manufacturer to celebrate 40 years since the first Lokotrack track-mounted mobile crusher prototype was produced in 1985.

It was an innovation designed to bring the added benefit of ‘movement, flexibility, and transportability’ to the process of aggregates production which was followed in 1987 by the commencement of series production of the Lokotrack range now known to quarry owners and aggregates producers across the globe.

Currently, the Lokotrack portfolio consists of 23 machines, each offering 50 configuration options. Part of the Metso Plus portfolio are their new diesel-electric EC range. With their award-winning design, EC units come equipped with cutting-edge crushing technology and digital tools to facilitate low carbon production in tune with the global drive towards sustainability and Net Zero.

Described by Metso as ‘a notable milestone’ and an ‘industry first’, the 40^th anniversary will be marked by what Metso Vice President for Track Solutions, Jarmo Vuorenpää says will be “a key highlight at our events and trade shows throughout 2025”.

Commenting, McHale Plant Sales chairman, Michael McHale said: “across the world on every continent, Metso Lokotrack crushers have built a reputation for reliability and performance, qualities that have given them a strong market position in the UK and Ireland”.

“A trusted name in the global aggregate crushing industry with over 11,000 units sold, Lokotrack has earned its place fully fulfilling the expectation set for it.  Evolving from ‘a bold idea’ into a mobile, track-mounted crusher that would revolutionise on-site operations, Lokotrack has brought unmatched efficiency to quarrying, aggregates, road construction and other projects, eliminating all of the handling, movement, and logistical obstacles that had been a drag on the industry previously,” McHale added.

According to detail set out in Metso’s initial announcement, as the market evolves it will be their intention to ‘stay ahead of trends and customer expectations’ through innovation: an ambition evident in their construction of a new technology centre scheduled for completion in 2027, and in their transfer of Lokotrack manufacturing from its present base to a new more modern centre near Tampere, Finland.

 

McHale Plant Sales, distributors in the UK and Ireland of Metso crushers and screening equipment, has been chosen ‘the first Gold level distributor certified by Metso under the Finnish manufacturer’s Partner Excellence Programme.’

Believing that their customers deserve ‘the best support in finding crushing and screening solutions that fit their specific needs’ Metso created their Partner Excellence Programme, committing themselves to helping their partners to achieve that service level.

According to Metso, the purpose of the Partner Excellence Programme is ‘to build a network of trusted Metso distributors’ who can help deliver Tier-1 service that the company says ‘will ensure a thriving customer success and satisfaction’.

In certifying McHale Plant Sales in the UK and Ireland as their first Gold level distributor, Metso praised the Tamworth, Edinburgh, Birdhill, and Rathcoole-based firm for their ‘exceptional performance, dedication, and commitment’ which, their citation says ‘has set a new standard of excellence’.

Staffed and dedicated to the business of crushing, McHale has represented Metso in the years since 2015 in Ireland and Northern Ireland markets, and in England, Scotland and Wales markets since early-2023. This latest commendation follows a ‘Best in Marketing’ award presented to them by Metso at a recent distributor conference held in Tampere, Finland in conjunction with their launch of the new electric-powered Lokotrack EC range.

Chosen for having ‘successfully met criteria for Gold level success following a comprehensive audit of the distributor’s operation conducted by Metso’s Aggregates Distribution Leadership Team, McHale after sales director, Anthony Ryan attributed it to “a lot of hard work, good systems, investment in field service, parts inventories and equipment, and to that all important factor of having lots of good people in place.”

 

Hot on the foot of the latest figures published by S&P in their ‘Global UK Construction Purchasing Managers Index’ the UK economy is experiencing what they say is: ‘the steepest rise in civil engineering activity since June 2021 with new orders growing at their strongest pace for two-and-a-half years’.

Echoing somewhat a prediction that Metso UK distributor, McHale Plant Sales themselves made to the effect that the UK economy is ‘on the cusp’ of economic recovery (published in trade media at the early part of this year), the confirmation from a body as respected as S&P will come as welcome news to everyone in the industry, and to the wider community including Government themselves.

As a company that has navigated its way through a number of economic ‘swings and roundabouts’ throughout its 70 plus years history – and has seen the impact both can have on the construction plant and civil works sectors – McHale is well positioned to advise aggregates producers as regards the preparation they should make in anticipation of an upswing.

“Unlike those in the ‘fast-moving consumer good field’ experienced buyers in the aggregates and construction plant sector will know that the equipment they need does not grow on trees,” a McHale statement says.

‘In the case of crushers, screens and suchlike – as in the excavators, dozers, loaders and dump trucks market – a growth in demand in one country is likely to be matched by a similar growth in other countries.

“Because crushers, screens, conveyors and suchlike are far from being what might be termed ‘off-the-shelf’ purchases, the pressure of demand – especially for equipment made by ‘tier one’ manufacturers such as Metso is – means that ‘queues will form and waiting periods can become the norm’ putting pressure on factories that they might not be able to immediately meet.”

“Mindful that no busy quarry owner or aggregates producer will have time to ‘wait in line’, the advice is clear: companies expecting to ride the wave of economic good fortune should move now and consider the equipment they will need to purchase,” McHale argues.

Whether to replace existing plant, or to equip themselves to handle growth, McHale’s advice is this: “Don’t wait for the boom before you buy. Now is the time to assess future need, provide for anticipated demand, and place whatever orders will be needed ahead of any rush that might come,” they recommend.

 

Metso distributor in the UK and Ireland, McHale Plant Sales has said that ‘it cannot yet confirm if the equipment manufactured by Diamond Z and Screen Machine would become available on UK and Irish markets.’

The response was issued to media by McHale in wake of the recent announcement by the Finnish manufacturer that it had acquired two major US equipment manufacturers, Diamond Z and Screen Machine Industries.

Their purchase of Diamond Z, based in Caldwell, Idaho is said by Metso to ‘increase their offering in mobile equipment for the organic recycling markets’ while their purchase of Etna, Ohio-based Screen Machine Industries ‘broadens its portfolio in the North American mobile crushing and screening markets’.

Diamond Z has established a reputation for manufacturing high quality and durable mobile and portable grinders for the infrastructure recycling sector. Their offering consists of a broad range of high-speed grinders to suit varying needs from land clearing, construction, demolition and composting to tyre disposal. 

Screen Machine Industries offers a broad range of heavy-duty machines for various aggregates crushing and screening applications.

According to Metso, both companies will continue to operate independently within Metso’s Materials Processing Products business line. The value of the transaction – which was not disclosed – has ‘no material impact’ on its finances, the Metso announcement added.

In a personal comment, McHale Plant Sales chairman, Michael McHale said: “this inspired acquisition by Metso underlines their determination to maintain their pre-eminent position in all major markets, of which the UK and Ireland are two, through being alert to opportunities and by acquiring products that fit comfortably within their portfolio and meet the requirements of customers.

 

The announcement by Metso that it is to continue its investment in digitalisation with the opening of a Digital Design and Development Studio in Krakow, Poland is one that promises future benefit for all Metso owners, according to their distributor in UK and Ireland, McHale Plant Sales.

Building on the company’s core competencies, the studio will play an important role in the development and implementation of digital solutions, marking what Metso calls ‘the next phase in the company’s digital development journey as it relates to software development, design, data, UX design and AI required to serve customers’ increasing appetite for advanced digital solutions’.

Today, Metso has approximately 50 digital experts working in the Krakow office and the number is expected to increase significantly within the next months. All in all, Metso has some 250 people working on its rich portfolio of digital solutions as they apply to equipment and process performance and business enablement.

With memories of ‘a hugely successful’ Hillhead 2024 exhibition still fresh in their minds, a top team from Metso’s UK distributors, McHale Plant Sales – including their chairman Michael McHale, managing director, Tim Shanahan and a full turnout of board members and sales personnel – talk was of the ‘impressive attendance overall and of the ‘very significant’ number of quarry owners and aggregates producers there to see the latest equipment on show.

According to their Business Development Director, Darragh O’Driscoll “particular interest was shown in our LT400J 68-ton mobile jaw crusher from the new Lokotrack EC diesel-electric range, and in the ‘highly transportable’ trailer-mounted Nordwheeler NW8HRC mobile unit whose high-pressure grinding rolls caught the attention of those who produce fine aggregates and other finely-ground output required in road surfacing, waste processing, and concrete products production”.

At a recent European distributors conference hosted by Metso at their headquarters in Tampere, Finland, attended by members of their European distributors network, a ‘Best in Marketing’ award was presented to their UK & Ireland distributor, McHale Plant Sales.

Held in conjunction with the launch of their new electric-powered Lokotrack EC range, the award recognises the success in marketing and sales that the company has brought to Metso, the focus of which fell on the work done by McHale to communicate their appointment as their distributors in the UK, and in the years since 2015 in Ireland and Northern Ireland markets.

Integral elements in their marketing communications programme included the acquisition of premises in Tamworth and Edinburgh, an intensive schedule of customer contacts, exhibits at Hillhead and Project Plant exhibitions, and on-going advertising, public relations, website, and social media campaigns.