Simple prototype led to success

The Liebherr company, headquartered in Bulle, Switzerland, and with annual sales of €8.2bn, has 120 operations globally and more than 33,000 employees.

Started by a German man Hans Liebherr in the years after the Second World War, he saw the opportunities for crane manufacturing that would be created in his country’s post-war rebuilding programme.

It all started when he created a simple prototype crane in 1949 which could speed up the rebuilding of residential and industrial areas.