Plastics News - Show Daily - October 19, 2022 - 24

24 * Plastics News, October 19, 2022
SHOW DAILY
Beyond packaging, electromobility
gains importance for Brückner Group
By David Vink
GREEN SOUL
TECHNOLOGICAL
ATTITUDE
Plastics News Correspondent
Siegsdorf, Germany-based
Brückner Group GmbH (Hall
3,
CONNECTED
NETWORK
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Booth C90-E90) consists of a core
Brückner Maschinenbau GmbH &
Co. KG (Hall 3, Booth C90) biaxially
oriented fi lm machinery subsidiary
in Siegsdorf, the Kiefel GmbH
(Hall 3, Booth E90) thermoforming
machines business near the Austrian
border in Freilassing and
Rüti, Switzerland-based PackSys
Global AG (Hall 3, Booth D90),
which is specialized in plastic tube
and closure production systems.
The group revealed in June that
it has grown its business from
€557 million in 2015 to €813 million
in 2021, with increases every
year except for a slight decline
in 2018. The number of Brückner
Group employees worldwide has
increased fi vefold to almost 2,600
since 2015.
Group Chief Financial Offi cer
Maximilian Schneider said the
COVID pandemic and cooling of
the Chinese economy resulted in
Brückner Group missing its €900
million 2021 turnover target, as it
achieved €831 million. Referring
primarily to oriented fi lm lines,
CEO Axel von Wiedersperg went
further and said, " China is giving
us some concern. "
Nevertherless, China continues
to be the strongest market for
Brückner Maschinenbau, while the
Indian subcontinent and Southeast
Asia also remain core markets.
Within overall 2021 sales,
Brückner Maschinenbau accounted
for €492 million and forecasts
growth to €853 million in 2022.
Brückner's fi lm service business,
Brückner Servtec GmbH,
plans plans to hit €74.8 million
and €75.5 million in 2023 and
2024, respectively.
Schneider referred to the way
in which plastics packaging has
dominated Brückner Maschinenbau's
business, saying, " If the
market says it wants less plastics
packaging, we have to offer alternatives.
We will not exit from plastics,
but we will become less and
less a pure plastics specialist. "
This means " more focus on
technical areas of capacitor fi lm
[which benefi ts from electromobility]
and especially on battery
separator fi lm, in which we have
incoming orders worth more than
€400 million. But also on alternative
materials. "
The latter is well exemplifi ed
by the shift of the group's Kiefel
thermoforming machine business
toward inclusion of wood fi ber
and paper thermoforming.
But there should also be increasing
use of recycled and biobased
rather than crude oil-based
plastics in Brückner Maschinenbau's
bioriented fi lm machinery
business, as well as more monomaterial
fi lms and packaging production
for optimal sorting to support
recycling, Schneider added.
In this respect, the BOPE/
BOPP carrier/sealing fi lm hybrid
line concept presented at K 2019
has meanwhile paid back with
11 BOPE/BOPP hybrid lines sold
worldwide, two of which in Europe,
with fi ve more following later
this year.
There was a risk of a 10 percent
downturn in 2022, " but we will
break through the billion euros
mark with an optimistic view of
achieving €1.26 billion in 2022, "
Schneider predicted, with battery
separator fi lm expected to
contribute €40 million in 2022.
Helmut Huber, Brückner
Maschinenbau chief operating
offi cer for sales and project management,
points out that packaging,
mainly food packaging, still
accounts for a high 88 percent
share of Brückner Maschinenbau
turnover. He admitted that
in view of the importance of the
packaging business, Brückner
had neglected the BSF sector to
some extent, due to a still-strong
market for packaging fi lm lines.
" We want ... to supply more
lines for technical applications,
but without ignoring the core
packaging business, " Huber said.
Huber reckons Brückner
should be selling 35-36 BSF lines
per year, in view of the existence
already of 27 battery factories in
Europe alone.
" They need BSF, preferably
BSF from next door, " Huber said.
" For example, battery factories in
Hungary and Sweden use 5.5-meter-wide
BSF lines from Brückner. "
Brückner says 35 million electric
cars expected to be in operation
worldwide by 2030 will trigger a
demand for approximately 280
lines for battery separator fi lms.
But it is not all smooth sailing
in packaging. " There is little happening
in PET, with demand for
BOPET lines suffering from investment
in this area now considered
unattractive, " Huber said,
stressing however " PP remains
the strongest area. "
This situation is clear from incoming
orders having been 26
percent PET packaging, 23 percent
PET industrial/optical and
33 percent PP packaging in 2021,
forecast to shift considerably in
2022, to 5 percent PET packaging,
1 percent PET industrial/optical
and 50 percent PP packaging. BSF
incoming orders are expected to
shift from 9 percent in 2021 to 35
percent in 2022.
Brückner BSF
battery separation
fi lm line. Brückner photo
http://www.moretto.com https://taiwan-pavilion.taitra.org.tw/K2022/
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