Insight

Together with Carlo Salvi, HATEBUR is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of machines for horizontal cold and hot forming. Under the guidance of three generations of the owner family, the venture that began in 1930 with the invention of the revolutionary turret-type hot former has developed to become the valued partner for many manufacturers of formed parts around the world. 

In 2016, we acquired Carlo Salvi SpA and therefore considerably expanded our product range. For us, this means a significantly greater emphasis on the fasteners and fixings market. In this respect, 2017 was shaped by three important aspects: The major, yet smooth, incorporation of Carlo Salvi as a second brand, in addition to HATEBUR, under the umbrella of the HATEBUR Group; the harmonisation of the markets and sales structures, with the objective of being able to offer customers in all of the markets in which we have a presence both machine technologies and appropriate productive and economic solutions; and finally the harmonious integration of the employees, and the pooling of expertise and sales power to ensure the welfare and growth of the HATEBUR Group.

After the former owner of Carlo Salvi, Dr Sergio Ziotti, retired at the end of 2016, and following a transition year to help design the new solution, Marco Pizzi and Germano Pandiani, along with two experienced experts, continued to manage the company as managing directors for commercial and operative transactions. In 2017, we quickly pushed ahead with our plans for the successful continuation of Carlo Salvi as an independent brand and, at the same time, the company’s integration into the Group. The development of our new corporate design, which is mainly reflected in the new website, played an important part here and also underlines how important the integration of Carlo Salvi is to us and the appreciation that we have for all of our employees.

The best indication of this intensive integration was also our joint appearance at the MF Tokyo show in Japan back in July 2017, at which we had just one stand – which showed off the new corporate design and offered two premieres: For the first time, a Carlo Salvi machine could be viewed at the HATEBUR stand. Also for the first time, we displayed technical components from the aviation industry, which demonstrates the numerous possibilities on offer from our machine technologies.

We experienced a high-level of success in Japan, as we did in China and, therefore, in Asia in general. In this case, being in closer proximity to our customer base has had a hugely positive effect on the growth of the business. We are working in much the same way on the distribution channels of HATEBUR and of Carlo Salvi as a whole in terms of providing optimum proximity to the customer. We are analysing, harmonising and improving them because we expect them to provide us with crucial momentum for organic growth. In addition to our innovative strength, we see proximity to the customers and markets as still being the key factor for successful and sustainable company growth.

In this sense, we have also succeeded in positively integrating Carlo Salvi’s employees. However, such a process still takes great effort and patience, and this will continue to keep us busy in the near future too. In addition, we have learned how to work with the strong Swiss Franc and we were able to see growth in terms of both sales and earnings in 2017. In 2018, the aim is that both brands will contribute to further increasing the return on sales.

In 2018 we want to make the most of the synergies in the markets to help generate sales, and we want to forge ahead with the joint internationalisation of HATEBUR and Carlo Salvi. Due to a rise in demand for lightweight construction, we are expecting an increasing demand from the automotive and aerospace sectors for solutions in the fasteners market worldwide. Added to this is an increased volume of requests from the e-mobility and renewable energy sectors. This is also accompanied by new technological challenges, which need to be tackled with innovations.

From a technological point of view, where we feel it makes sense to do so, we will gradually equip our machines with new servo technology, culminating in direct drives. Our first premiere of 2018 will therefore be a HATEBUR machine with a servo linear infeed and servo transfer unit. Thanks to this technology, we are providing our customers with the opportunity to produce their goods even more precisely while, at the same time, conserving resources. This premiere machine will act as an innovative technological showcase, whose functions we will subsequently transfer over to other machine models from both HATEBUR and Carlo Salvi.

With Carlo Salvi, we want to maintain, strengthen and build upon our market position. Along with further internationalisation, we are striving towards healthy growth in sales and earnings, not least thanks to our technologies and innovations. Thanks to the increasing global division of labour and our excellent distribution channels, we see excellent opportunities to achieve this goal.

We want to respond to the megatrend towards digitalisation under the heading of Industry 4.0, by offering new ideas in the services sector and when invoicing for spare parts. Given all the above, the highest maxim is to always offer real added value.