Buss: Fabrel Lotos and the Buss management acquire Buss from the Coperion Group
After acquisition by Fabrel Lotos Zurich and the Buss management, Buss AG Pratteln (Switzerland) is once again an independent manufacturer of compounding and processing plants. A friendly separation agreement with retrospective effect per January 1, 2006 terminated the company’s five-year membership of the Coperion Group, Stuttgart. The globally active Buss AG, with annual sales around CHF 60 million, currently employs 200 people. Strategic planning for the next few years is focussed on growth. To efficiently support its 1200 customers and provide local maintenance and service for some 3400 machines installed worldwide, Buss has its own sales and service subsidiaries in Chicago, Singapore, Shanghai and Tokyo as well as a global network of highly experienced agents.
The parties have agreed not to reveal the transaction price. The new Board chairman Hans-Ulrich von Weissenfluh explained the reason for this acquisition as follows: “Having regained its independence, Buss AG can now concentrate purposefully and unrestrictedly on its speciality markets in the plastics, chemical, aluminium and food industries. Its experienced employees and well-proven management team under Dr. Beat Sturzenegger guarantee the continuity desired both by customers and ourselves. Furthermore, the company can build on the substantial progress made over the last few years. Its successful new developments
will be systematically marketed, and Fabrel Lotos will give this strategy full support. The Buss Kneader invented more than half a century ago was a record-breaking industrial innovation. Thanks to successful ongoing development, it is still the best available product for many applications today – and I am convinced that it will remain so for many years to come”. From the Buss point of view, Dr. Sturzenegger added: ‘This majority acquisition by Fabrel Lotos, a well-established Swiss investor with substantial industrial
experience, entirely meets our goals. Thanks to our new owner, we can further increase our innovation strength thereby. It spurs our highly motivated team to focus even more on serving our customers as an innovative solution-oriented system supplier for many demanding processing and compounding tasks. With this customer-oriented strategy we shall further expand our market shares, which are already high at 15 to over 50 percent according to sector”.