Lord Bamford opens new JCB Germany HQ

Brand new £50 million headquarters facility for Europe’s second-largest construction equipment market

JCB chairman Lord Bamford has officially opened a new headquarters for one of the company’s most important European businesses in an investment worth around £50 million.

Founded in 1965, JCB Germany are now operating from state-of-the-art facilities on a 12-acre site in Cologne.

The new headquarters is three times the size of JCB Germany’s former facility in Cologne and is located at the heart of the country’s largest industrial area – the Rhine-Ruhr zone.

It has excellent transport links, with the A4 Autobahn connecting the headquarters to the Netherlands and Belgium, and the A1 Autobahn linking it to northern and southern Germany.

The headquarters complex includes offices for 75 employees and a training centre for use by customers and JCB Germany’s network of dealers, which employs a further 2,000 people.

The facility – which also has a showroom for JCB’s latest machines – will host 3,000 delegates a year for sales and technical training, as well as holding operator training courses in a specially constructed demonstration area for construction/agricultural dealers.

Lord Bamford unveiled a plaque to mark the opening during a conference at the new facility, attended by JCB’s largest 50 dealers from around the world.

Speaking at the opening, he said: ‘Europe has been a very significant market for JCB since the 1950s and this facility is a great example of our investment in future growth.

‘JCB have operated in Germany for more than 50 years and it is a crucial market for JCB because it is Europe’s second-largest construction equipment market and the fifth largest in the world. This investment will help JCB deliver sales growth in the years ahead.’