Merger of Staedler Automation AG and Kalt Maschinenbau AG
Kalt Maschinenbau AG and Staedler Automation AG: Two strong companies are joining forces to continue into the future together.
The owners of Kalt Maschinenbau AG (“Kalt”) and Staedler Automation AG (“Staedler”) have agreed to pursue a joint path in future. Kalt, a leading international specialist in cheese-making, dairy, and process technology, and Staedler, a provider of industrial automation solutions, want to join forces and act together in the market as a full-range supplier in future, further accelerating the growth course of the past years. Lukas Staedler and Thomas Fäh, Staedler’s previous owners, are taking over a stake in Kalt Group and strengthening the management team at group level.
Staedler is a young, dynamic, and innovative company with excellent customer understanding and an outstanding reputation in the field of industrial automation. In addition to process controls and robotics solutions, Staedler also offers industrial machines for cooking and cooling food. Staedler, founded by Lukas Staedler in 2009, employs about 30 specialised staff today. The previous owners of Staedler have examined various growth options in order to continue the high growth of recent years. One of these was initiating the next phase of growth with an external partner. A partner for positioning as a larger and unified group was found in Kalt. The competences, products, and customers of the two companies are complementary. Lukas Staedler enthusiastically emphasises: “Continuity and sustainable growth were always important to me as a founder. Satisfying customer needs will continue to be at our focus in future. The merger is going to enable us to develop new, innovative products even better and faster and to offer our customers a broader range of products.”
As in many industries, automation keeps on advancing in cheese dairy technology. Skills in robotics, control units, and software are becoming increasingly important. This is precisely where Daniel Martin, CEO of Kalt Group, sees the greatest advantages for its customers: “Kalt is known for high-quality products with a focus on technology, quality, and automation. With Staedler’s core competencies in the areas of robotics and process automation, we will be able to act as a full-range supplier on the market in future and focus even more on automation solutions and interlinking of the entire production process.”
Antonio Cives, Chairman of the Board of Kalt Group and Managing Partner at CGS Management AG, explains: “When we took over Kalt in mid-2020, we announced that we were going to push ahead with internationalisation and broaden our product portfolio through acquisitions. We have been working hard to expand our geographical reach since. We are now also going to complement our product portfolio and thus consistently implement the jointly developed strategy with the merger with Staedler. We are particularly happy that Lukas Staedler and Thomas Fäh are highly motivated to contribute their experience and expertise to management roles at group level in future.” Lukas Staedler and Thomas Fäh are holding significant minority stakes in the group. This keeps Kalt and Staedler entrepreneurially managed. The majority shareholder of the group is Swiss investor CGS.
