Laeis Strenghtened under the Roof of Sacmi Group

2005-04-06

Following the economical and technological development in the worldwide ceramics and refractories industry, Laeis/D joined the Sacmi Group/I at the beginning of this year. The turnover of Laeis in the year 2003 was approx. EUR 25 million (export rate: > 80%). There are 65 employees at Laeis in Trier. Laeis is known as the world leading manufacturer and supplier of presses and kilns for the refractories industry. Few months ago Riedhammer/D, the kiln manufacturer with global activities, also joined the Sacmi Group, who acquired 90% of the shares. Karl Eping (KE), Managing Director of Laeis, was prepared to give us information on the new situation and the strategies of Laeis within the Sacmi Group. cfi: How is Laeis integrated in the organisational structure of Sacmi group? KE: Laeis as well as the Refractories Division of Sacmi, is part of the Ceramics & Tiles Business Unit. cfi: Which kind of new synergies resulted from the activities of Sacmi in the refractories industry before taking over Laeis? KE: Laeis is a traditional firm, very well known by the refractories market. Our sales forces are in contact with all the main refractories?producers all over the world and our technicians worked hard to improve our product portfolio in the last years, i.e. the vacuum pressing. Laeis has been doing important steps to extend the applications of its presses (e.g. anodes, salts, carbons). At the same time, Sacmi also started to enter new markets, like the one for aluminium cookware. Both companies produced a wide range of products over the past years and we want to give our clients as many options as possible to let them decide which ones fit their needs best. For that reason, Sacmi and Laeis will keep on offering both ranges of equipment to their traditional clients and can thus ensure them the continuity of choice. cfi: Concerning the activities of Laeis in the tile industry: Are these activities now completely integrated in Sacmi? What would this mean for Laeis?customers? KE: Laeis had already started, even before being taken over by Sacmi, to change the commercial activities of the company as our market share in the tile industry has decreased slowly for the last three years and our main focus has moved to the refractories market. We will not quit the tile market completely, but, due to the huge size of this market, we are working in synergy with the Sacmi commercial and service network because we want to keep on servicing our clients. cfi: Which advantages arise for Laeis in the refractories industry concerning the marketing activities, being a 100% subsidiary company of Sacmi group? KE: Laeis may find many synergies both with the service and the spare parts network of the Sacmi Group all over the world, even though we cannot forget our previous co-operations with our strategic channels mainly focused on the refractories industry. cfi: How great is the importance of the graphite/carbon and cement bonded product market sectors? KE: Laeis has developed special hydraulic presses for shaping products for these or new sectors according to both today and future requirements. Because the world wide refractories market is almost stagnating, these new markets are providing major growth potential for Laeis. cfi: LBP (formerly Laeis Bucher)was not taken over by Sacmi. Does this mean that for the future Laeis plants will be built in Imola or at Sacmi Forni, too? cfi/Ber. DKG 81 (2004) No. 10 E 1 KE: It is very simple to answer this question, and Iam very pleased you asked that, in order to avoid any doubt on that. We took a compromise with LBP to keep on manufacturing and assembling our equipment in their facility for at least three years, but of course we have to help them (and vice-versa) to be as competitive as possible in the very short term, because no European company can afford a cost increase if it does not want to loose market worldwide. Therefore, LBP will be subject to the market law of competition, as well as any other of our suppliers. Strict control of our costs together with quality control of the final product are currently our main targets left below