Ransomes' parent company relocates production to UK

Textron Specialized Vehicles Inc., a Textron Inc. (NYSE: TXT) company, will relocate all manufacturing of Registered Affiliate Ransomes Jacobsen professional turf equipment to its facility in Ipswich. The move will begin this autumn and be completed in stages over the next several months.

This move will enable the company to focus its investments, skill, and improvements in mower production on a single facility, and leverage existing resources and expertise at its Ipswich facility. The plant, which currently builds Jacobsen and Ransomes mowers, is the oldest manufacturer of motorized lawn mowers in the world, in operation for more than 187 years.

The UK facility will produce mowers for all regions, including North America. Jacobsen will maintain its sales and customer-care teams in North America, and its network of North American distributors, to serve its customers in the United States and Canada.

We are excited to establish our Ipswich UK facility as the worldwide manufacturing centre of excellence for Jacobsen equipment...

said Simon Rainger, Vice President, Turf for Textron Specialized Vehicles.

This move will enable us to operate more efficiently, and expand on the legacy of innovation and quality that our Ipswich plant has built over its long history.

Jacobsen continues to develop new products to serve its customers around the globe. The brand will launch a robust slate of new mowers this year, including the quiet, highly efficient Eclipse 360 ELiTE electric greens mower powered by Samsung SDI lithium-battery technology, and the new AR530 and AR730 contour rotary mowers, designed to be safer, easier and more cost-effective to maintain and operate.