Munich-based KraussMaffei Group announced a purchase agreement to sell its Swiss subsidiary Netstal Maschinen AG to Krones AG has been signed, with the transaction valued at about $183.1 million. Näfels, Switzerland-based Netstal is a leading supplier of injection molding machines and has been a strategic partner of Krones in the past.
As part of the deal, Krones also is acquiring Netstal Deutschland GmbH, a sales and service subsidiary based in Stuttgart, Germany, plus 11 other sales and service units in the U.S., South America, Europe and Asia. About 530 employees will transfer from KraussMaffei to Krones, and all existing Netstal jobs will be retained. Netstal will continue to manage its business independently, and its CEO of many years, Renzo Davatz, will continue to manage the company. Krones expects the transaction to be completed within the first half of this year.
Netstal Maschinen AG's consolidated share of the KraussMaffei Group’s total sales in the 2023 financial year was just under 20 percent.
“The sale of Netstal is part of our long-term plan to realign KraussMaffei strategically, organizationally and on the global market,” KraussMaffei CEO Chi Zhang said. “In future, we want to concentrate fully on our core business and new growth markets, strengthen the KraussMaffei core brand and focus the group accordingly. At the same time, the sale of Netstal gives us the leeway to make further investments, for example in digitization and the development of new machines.”
Krones said the acquisition is beneficial in several ways, with Netstal’s PET and cap businesses complementing Krones’ product portfolio for the beverage market. Krones’ technologies provide closed-loop solutions from injection molding to PET container production to filling/packaging and recycling, and Netstal’s medical and thin-wall packaging segments support Krones’ strategy to diversify into the medical/pharmaceutical market as well as into food and home-personal-care applications.
