Machine tool holding

Metalexport Co.Ltd. is one of the best known Polish companies specialising in trading and producing machine tool, instruments and other technological devices. The company has been on the Polish and foreign markets for 50 years. For many years the MEX logo has been a synonym of high quality of the products of the Polish machine tool industry and Polish technical thinking.
During its long existence Metalexport has experienced many organisational transformations and changes. Since 2000 has been a private company managed by Piotr Büchner a well-known Polish businessman who owns 90 percent of the company stock. Metalexport’s present proprietor has set himself the target of making this company which is known throughout the world – with 85 of its trade accounted for by exports – an international holding with the stress on the machine tool and instruments industry.
At present Metalexport forms a group of 30 dependent companies in Poland and in many foreign countries, in which almost 3,500 skilled specialists are employed, whose qualifications constitute the company’s principal potential. When appropriately used and in conjunction with the restructuring of the companies, it will guarantee its more rapid expansion.
Piotr Büchner claims: “Metalexport enjoys the international opinion of a solid firm offering the highest quality products. Using this, wholly justified opinion, we plan to increase our presence on world markets at least twofold. The company’s annual performance today oscillates around 200 million US dollars which is a figure we must quickly and substantially increase. Then we shall attain our self-set target.”
Metalexport is steadily increasing its presence on world markets, the effect of an effective network of machine tool and instruments sales constructed down the years. Daughter-companies subordinate to the main office operate in such countries as the USA, Canada, Germany, Britain, Italy and Israel, functioning under the legislation of the countries in which they are registered. Piotr Büchner accepts that they are all modern organisational bodies. Representative offices have been opened in Russia and Turkey. The company cooperates with agents and business representatives in many countries in Europe, the two Americas, Asia and Africa.
Metalexport enjoys a strong position of the leading supplier of machine tools and instruments to the Polish market, both imported and produced in Poland, primarily in its own factories. Metalexport is the owner or joint-owner of several Polish factories: Jafo in Jarocin producing machine tools, Bison-Bial in Białystok – work holding equipment, Dolfamex in Jelenia Góra – cutting tools, a foundry in Koluszki, and the Polmo factory in Gniezno producing gear wheels. In the opinion of Piotr Büch-
ner they require restructuring and management streamlining.
Piotr Büchner remarks: “Our product line holds all machine tool groups and types. The customer can choose both light, standard machine tools and also complex, heavy specific-purpose machine tools. Our sales programme also includes cutting, clamping and measuring tools and instruments. Special-purpose tools are produced on demand as well as complete production lines and facilities for the engineering industry, including the arms industry. The company also offers various kinds of castings, primarily components for the machine-tool and motorcar industry. Specialist castings, e.g. for the Warsaw underground railway are also manufactured.”
Metalexport has established contact with large international consortiums in order to implement its production-updating programmes and the related restructuring of its companies. Cooperation has been established with Autoblok of Italy a leader in chuck production as well as with Thyssen-Krupp of Germany which is a leader in machine tool production.
It has been recognised in Metalexport that, though the machine tool industry occupies the leading position in the company, it should not be the sole field of its interest. That is the reason why Piotr Büchner has concluded several contracts and agreements with diverse international consortiums to implement joint operations in other areas of the economy, to mention but telecommunications and electricity generation. The first such was signed with Thyssen Rheinsthal Technik GmbH to construct a wind power plant on the Polish seacoast, to be implemented as a joint venture. The generated energy will be delivered to Germany. Metalexport also intends to cooperate with this company in producing equipment for naval vessels. Agreement has been reached on armaments production with Noricum, the known arms consortium.
Piotr Büchner adds: “Our plans also comprise cooperation with RNS Radio Networks & Systems, Motorola’s representative. We are thinking of a joint project to develop a Tetra-type digital telephones network for public safety and rescue services. This will be a contract of around 500 million US dollars in which we would account for a 15-percent participation. And in the future, we want to construct an e-commerce electronic sales platform together with Motorola.”
Expansion onto foreign markets is a basic item in Metalexport’s development strategy, which is the reason for joint ventures with world industrial leaders and for promoting its products and the related Polish technical thinking. It is that which
Piotr Büchner calls: “the avant-garde of world development”. The company’s exports are presently aimed, first and foremost, at West Europe and North America. But the East is also in Metalexport’s attention. Those markets have been accepted as being greatly attractive. Russia and China are recognised as of the greatest interest but others are also worth attention, to mention but North Korea and the talks which have been proceeding there.
Piotr Büchner explains: “Every politically stable market is of interest. Many attractive offers can be encountered in the East. We are open to all cooperation proposals not only in the fields where we presently operate. Our personnel is fully prepared for such tasks. That apart, we have already established such principles of functioning which allow various other activities to be flexibly performed.”
Metalexport’s President does not deliver such statements lightly. He is one of Poland’s best known businessmen, a joint creator of Poland’s economic transformation in the 1990s. The experience he has acquired down the years and his skills are bearing fruit today in implementing the complex programme of Metalexport’s development, a company which for years was recognised as the forerunner of the market economy in Poland. Poland today faces the grand opportunity of expansion and of becoming a leader in the machine tool, instruments and special production industry.
Andrzej K.Kazimierski