PETpla.net Insider 05 / 2013

imprint EDITORIAL PUBLISHER Alexander Büchler, Managing Director HEAD OFFICE heidelberg business media GmbH Häusserstr. 36 69115 Heidelberg, Germany phone: +49(0)6221-65108-0 fax: +49(0)6221-65108-28 info@hbmedia.net EDITORIAL Doris Fischer: f ischer@hbmedia.net Michael Maruschke Ruari McCallion Waldemar Schmitke Ilona Trotter Wolfgang von Schroeter Anthony Withers MEDIA CONSULTANTS Ute Andrä andrae@hbmedia.net Martina Hischmann hirschmann@hbmedia.net Roland Loch loch@hbmedia.net phone: +49(0)6221-65108-0 fax: +49(0)6221-65108-28 France, Italy, Spain, UK Elisabeth Maria Köpke phone: +49(0)6201-878925 fax: +49(0)6201-878926 koepke@hbmedia.net LAYOUT AND PREPRESS Exprim Kommunikationsdesign Matthias Gaumann | www.exprim.de READER SERVICES Shiraz El Goudi reader@hbmedia.net PRINT Chroma Druck & Verlag GmbH Werkstr. 25 67454 Römerberg Germany WWW www.hbmedia.net | w ww.petpla.net PETplanet insider ISSN 1438-9459 is published 10 times a year. This publication is sent to qualified subscribers (1-year subscription 149 EUR, 2-year subscription 289 EUR, Young professionals’ sub- scription 99 EUR. Magazines will be dispatched to you by airmail). Not to be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher. Note: The fact that product names may not be identified as trade marks is not an indication that such names are not registered trademarks. 3 PET planet insider Vol. 14 No. 05/13 www.petpla.net EDITORIAL dear readers, Where are the great minds? Financial and strategic investors are increasingly dabbling in the PET sector. It happened to Sidel with its sale to Tetra Pak; or Husky, sold off to financial investors; Krupp/SIG, now broken up into separate divisions. Net- stal was one of the last to succumb, but was finally absorbed by Krauss- Maffei. KraussMaffei in turn was acquired by the former owner of Husky. Now Mold-Masters and Milacron are also in the hands of a single investor. Who still remembers the great minds that made these companies big names? Francis Olivier of Sidel, Werner Fielmann of Krupp, Dieter Klug of Netstal or the Gellert family at Mold-Masters. Robert Schad seems to be the last surviving member of this pioneering group, with his new venture, Athena. Increasingly, professional managers are heading up these companies, not necessarily managing less well but using a distinctly different manage- rial style. What is lacking are the rough edges that give the individual firms their distinctive profile. A glance at the south of Europe shows that there are still PET com- panies with these rough edges; the Italians, in particular, with teams of mechanical engineers who are constantly changing the face of the sector. We think of Sacmi with their new preform system or Sipa with their new cooperative venture with Robert Schad. And if we delve further into the machinery it is here that we discover the mould. It is here that we find ingenuity still flourishing amongst these companies. Otto Hofstetter without whom PET moulds would not look the way they do today or Romeo Corvaglia without whom we would not have advanced as far as we have today with lightweight closures. Where processors are concerned, there are two families that dominate the sector: the Lehners at Alpla and the Krautkrämers at Bericap. And let us not forget Volker Kronseder, who has successfully built up a stretch blow moulding and filling machine empire. We probably need both kinds of manager. The great minds, who have the staying power to focus intently on their vision and who drive the sector forward technologically. And then the shrewd and dispassionate managers, whose main objective is to ensure continuity in engineering. At the coming drinktec/PETpoint we shall again have the opportunity to compare and contrast the different strategies. Yours Alexander Büchler