Oerlikon divestment of natural fibre business to Saurer in progress

Infrastructure for new entity being built up

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Oerlikon announced divestment of the natural fibre business in the first week of December 2012. The natural fibre business, which has been acquired by the Jinsheng Group of China, will be headquartered in Europe under the new corporate entity Saurer AG. In many ways, the 160-year-old Saurer brand is reborn, and the man at the helm of this new entity is its CEO, Mr. Daniel Lippuner, currently Managing Director of Oerlikon Textile Components.

Textile Magazine (TM): How is the divestment process and setting up of the new company shaping up?

Daniel Lippuner (DL): Over the last few months, we’ve been working hard on the one hand to build up the infrastructure of the new Saurer Group and on the other, to carve out the natural fibre business from the Oerlikon Group and hand it over to the Saurer Group on the closing date. The new Saurer Group has been setting up legal entities around the world, and we are now talking to the employees to move them to the new entity by the closing date. We have been working on the brand strategy. Saurer will be the umbrella brand, and we will have brands like Schlafhorst, Texpart, Zinser, Volkmann, Accotex and the other brands which will be the brand of the product sold in the market.
TM: What is the target date that you have fixed for completion of this divestment and creation of the new entity?

DL: Oerlikon communicated that the target date will be end of Q3 of 2013. We are working towards that and it looks possible that we can do it before the target date.

TM: But, till such time will you still continue to work under the Oerlikon umbrella?

DL: The employees will work till the last day for Oerlikon and then move to Saurer from the next day. Nothing changes, it’s just the renaming for them and also for the customer. Our customers will get the same levels of service and products, and of course we are working on a strategy to further improve our product offerings and services.

TM: What will be the name of the company and where will it be headquartered?

DL: Saurer AG will be the holding company which will be headquartered in Switzerland, and then we have companies in Germany which will be called Saurer GmbH and legal entities in all other markets including India. We will sell the machines under the umbrella brand Saurer and a combination of individual brands Schlafhorst, Zinser, Accotex…because that’s how they are known in the market. We will have 3,800 employees worldwide with around 20 manufacturing facilities with free access to all global markets.

We are a European company centered around European engineering with very extensive footprint around the world with manufacturing units in India, China and Singapore, but development work is still in Europe. All important decisions are made here to provide superior quality product to our customer.

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TM: How would this change impact the business in India?

DL: In India, we have a very large man-made fiber business, a very large service organisation and a big business for natural fiber as well as components with our own factory at Halol, Gujarat, and two joint ventures. The first step is to carve out the natural fiber business out of the Oerlikon Group. I was in India recently and discussed in detail with the President of Indian operations on how we are going to do this, moving of employees, offices. We have decided to set up a new service station in Ahmedabad. We will shift to a new Indian headquarters which will be close to the current Oerlikon India headquarters. India is currently the second most important market worldwide for the natural fibre business and may be in the future the most important for us.

TM: So with all these changes happening initially from Saurer to Oerlikon and now back to Saurer, is there a certain level of uncertainty in the minds of the customers and employees? Will this impact your business?

DL: No I don’t think so….It will clearly be a European company and we will be a pure player around the natural fiber segment and this will remain an advantage for us because we will focus all our efforts and the investments and energy on the natural fiber machines. We will be able to offer products and solutions that will fit even better with their daily needs. We will continue to invest in R&D, sales and service to provide a better experience.

On the other side, with the Saurer brand coming back, it has built in a lot of confidence with the customers and employees because they are used to the Saurer brand for many decades or centuries. Our employees are our brand ambassador, and they are really enthusiastic and excited about the change and they can hardly wait till this really happens.