The company history of Berkefeld Filteranlagenbau (Celle/Germany) – a successful one down to the present day – began more than hundred years ago. After several changes of ownership – the last owner of Berkefeld was the Thyssen Group – the company has belonged to the Veolia Group for nine months now. In the course of the sale, Thyssen declared the intention to grant all foreign Berkefeld subsidiaries autonomy – including the Austrian Berkefeld-Zuckriegl Wassertechnik GmbH based in Vienna, which had been bought by the Henkel Group only in 1999.
This allowed a management buy-out in September 2003, with fifty percent going to Karl-Heinz Büchl and fifty percent to the ÖWV. The new owners thus acquired the exclusive rights over Berkefeld (Veolia) products in Austria and guaranteed in return not to represent any other competitive products.
"Alone through the connection with Zuckriegl, an Austrian company rich in tradition in the field of water technology, our now independent company was and is not in the least restricted to marketing activities," explains Karl-Heinz Büchl.
"We have sufficient know-how of our own to participate effectively in the water treatment market! Thus, we also offer – particularly for the industrial field – deionisation and reverse osmosis plants (including overall planning), and we strive for introducing more and more proprietary developments. A further pillar is the marketing of chemicals for drinking water, cooling water, bathing water and boiler water treatment. For this purpose, we mainly use Henkel, Berkefeld-Chemie, and Hydro-X products."
Backed by the well renowned brand names "Berkefeld" – in context with the proven gravity filter cartridges or the mobile water treatments plants for emergency events – and "Zuckriegl" (water treatment for industry and trade), Büchl can confidently look ahead with his team of eight – i.e to the European Union and Eastern Europe.
"We always work Eastern markets in cooperation with partners from the industry," explains the expert. Examples are cooperations with Böhler in Hungary/Budapest, with Henkel, and the French bottler FCA in the Ukraine, but also projects in Slovenia and Slovakia.
While cooperation with the second owner ÖWV has so far been restricted to the operation of the common storehouse at Tulln (Lower Austria) – where small plants are compiled from construction sets – cooperation shall become closer in the future.
Thus, Karl-Heinz Büchl and his development team are presently elaborating plans to move the entire Berkefeld-Zuckriegl Wassertechnik GmbH to Tulln as of 2006, where the ÖWV is based.
Since the ÖWV is mainly active in the field of wastewater plant construction, this would represent another mainstay for the company! In 2004, Berkefeld-Zuckriegl Wassertechnik GmbH achieved a turnover of about € 1.7 million, with the chemical branch accounting for € 0.5 million. The ÖWV turnover was about twice this amount in the same year. Karl-Heinz Büchl expects turnovers to rise to more than € 2 million. The construction project of a large process water treatment plant for Radlberger, which has recently been tackled, will contribute a major share to this development.
(Source: aqua press Int. 2/2005)
Contact & Information:
Berkefeld-Zuckriegl
Wassertechnik GmbH
GF DI Karl-Heinz Büchl
Heiligenstädterstraße 51
A-1190 Wien
Tel.: +43/1/698 65 50
Fax: +43/1/698 65 50-10
