Merger of Kalt Maschinenbau AG and Staedler Automation AG
Kalt Maschinenbau AG and Staedler Automation AG: two strong companies pool their strengths and embark on a shared future.
The owners of Kalt Maschinenbau AG (“Kalt”) and staedler automation AG (“staedler”) have agreed to collaborate in future. Kalt, a leading international specialist in cheese, dairy and process technology, and Staedler, a provider of industrial automation solutions, want to pool their strengths and show a united front to the market as a full-range provider in the future, and thus accelerate the growth path achieved in past years. The previous owners of Staedler, Lukas Städler and Thomas Fäh, will be shareholders of Kalt Group and strengthen the management team at group level.
Staedler is a young, dynamic and innovative company with excellent client understanding and a first-class reputation in industrial automation. Staedler provides process automation and robotics solutions, as well as industrial machines for cooking and cooling foodstuffs. Lukas Städler founded the company in 2009 and Staedler now employs about 30 specialized staff. The previous owners of Staedler reviewed various options to continue the strong growth of recent years. One of those options was to initiate the next growth phase with an external partner. This partner has been found in Kalt, enabling a positioning within a larger and uniform group. The two companies have complementary competencies, products and clients. Lukas Städler enthusiastically stresses: “Continuity and sustainable growth have always been important to me as the founder. Meeting our clients’ demands will remain our focus in the future. The merger will improve our capacity to develop better and new innovative products more quickly and offer our clients a broad product spectrum.”
As in many sectors, automation in cheese production is continually progressing. Skills in robotics, control systems and software are becoming more important. That is precisely where Daniel Martin, CEO of Kalt Group, sees the main benefits for the company’s customers: “Kalt is known for high-quality products focusing on technology, quality and automation. The core competencies of Staedler in robotics and process automation will enable us to operate as a full-range provider in the market and focus still more on automation solutions and interconnecting the entire production process.”
Antonio Cives, Chairman of the Board of Directors at Kalt Group and Managing Partner at CGS Management AG, explains: “When we acquired Kalt in mid-2020, we said the aim was to advance internationalization and broaden the product portfolio through acquisitions. Since then, we have worked intensively on expanding our geographical reach. The merger with Staedler allows us to complement our product portfolio, so we can implement the jointly established strategy consistently. We are particularly pleased that Lukas Städler and Thomas Fäh are highly motivated to contribute their experience and expertise in management roles at group level in the future.“
Lukas Städler and Thomas Fäh have a significant minority share in the group, together with CEO Daniel Martin and CFO Marcel Kuhn. Kalt and Staedler thus remain in entrepreneurial hands. Swiss investor CGS has a majority share in the Group.
