Six months after its acquisition of Hayter Limited, The Toro Company has announced first news of its future distribution strategy for the sale of Toro and Hayter professional golf, sports and grounds turf maintenance equipment in the UK.
From 1st November this year Lely will concentrate on serving the professional golf and sports turf markets, in which it enjoys an unrivalled reputation built on 22 years’ experience of selling Toro products. And Hayter will focus on its core local authority markets, in which it likewise has a strong presence, established over 50 years as a leader in lawn and landscape equipment.
As a result of this move, Hayter will add two Toro products that are particularly well suited to the local authority market to be offered exclusively to Hayter dealers. These are the 27hp Toro Z500-D zero-turn riding mower and the 28hp Groundsmaster 3280-D out-front rotary machine. Lely will continue to provide full life parts and service support to local authority customers for all products sold by them prior to that date.
Dennis Himan, Toro’s vice-president and general manager for international business, says, “Over the past six months, we have come to fully understand that Hayter’s leadership is founded on the strengths of its innovative products, services and support for the city and local authority markets. At the same time, we have explored how these strengths can be optimised to more fully complement the unique niche established by Lely and Toro in the golf and fine turf/sports market.
“Both the Toro and Hayter brands are very strong and important to their respective customer bases. Therefore, as we go forward, our strategy must allow us to focus the talents and expertise of both Hayter and Lely dealers in the markets where they have greatest opportunity to excel. One of the ways we can achieve this is by expanding the products Hayter dealers can provide to the core grounds market.
“Therefore, from 1st November specially-designed Toro-branded zero-turn-radius mowers and the Groundsmaster 3280-D out-front rotary will be offered exclusively to Hayter dealers to enable them to gain credibility and market share among their core customers. These products will sport the standard Toro red colour in order to preserve speed to market and cost efficiencies.
“Lely has been the distributor of Toro’s commercial machinery for over 22 years, as well as the Toro distributor for irrigation and consumer products for a shorter period of time. The Toro Company places an extremely high value on the skills and expertise of the Lely team and sees Lely as a major part of Toro’s ongoing distribution strategy in the UK.”
Hayter www.hayter.co.uk
Toro www.toro.com
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