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Founded in 1992 as Changsha Hi-tech Development Area Zoomlion Construction Mechanical Industry Company, one of its first products were concrete pumps. The company grew out of a subsidiary founded in 1956 in Beijing, as part of the first Ministry of Machinery Industry, Ministry of Construction, Central Enterprise Work Committee.
Early acquisition of state-owned assets
Early development included the merging of several smaller, preexisting entities with Zoomlion including the former Concrete Machinery Research Office and remnants of the Changsha Construction Machinery Research Institute.
IPO
Marking its transition to a public company, Zoomlion made an initial public offering on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange on Oct 12, 2000, soon after acquiring ISO9001 certification.
Overseas asset acquisitions
A rarity at a time when developing country companies seldom acquired their developed country counterparts, Zoomlion bought the British company Powermole in the early 2000s.In 2008, Zoomlion made another foreign acquisition with the purchase of Italian concrete machinery manufacturer, Compagnia Italiana Forme Acciaio SpA , in an equity link-up with Goldman Sachs, Mandarin Capital Partners, and Hony Capital.
CCTV presentation
Having been previously featured in a 2001 CCTV documentary, an advertisement for the company was also presented on CCTV in May 2004.
Accusations of Fraud
In May 2013, Chinese newspaper New Express reported on alleged fraud at Zoomlion. This caused Zoomlion to temporarily suspend trading of its stock and later resulted in a 9% decrease in its share price. Zoomlion accused the reporter Chen Yongzhou of "damaging business interests" and he has since been arrested. In October, 2013, New Express published a large front-page plea for his release.
Chery Heavy Industry acquisition
In August 2014, Zoomlion purchased a majority share in the agricultural machinery maker Chery Heavy Industry. Zoomlion purchased 60 percent of the company for 2.08 billion yuan. With this acquisition Zoomlion intended to modernize China's agricultural machinery industry and compete with foreign brands that still dominate a big part of the medium and high-end large farm machinery market in China.
Environmental unit sale
Due to financial difficulties following a long term slow down in the Chinese construction industry Zoomlion sold its environmental unit in May 2017 for 11.6 billion yuan . This came after the company reported a 929 million yuan loss in the 2015/16 period.
