Polytec Holding (Hörsching / Austria; www.polytec-group.com) is making great strides towards expansion. On 1 April 2007, the Vienna stock market-listed company acquired the moulding compounds business of Menzolit-Fibron (Bretten / Germany; www.menzolit-fibron.de) for an undisclosed sum from Swedish injection moulder Plastal (Küngälv; www.plastal.com). This makes Polytec the largest European manufacturer of automotive composites. Days earlier, the Austrian group announced that it was in the advanced stages of negotiations about acquiring insolvent German automotive supplier ISE Intex – see Plasteurope.com Web of 07.02.2007.

Combined sales of the Polytec Automotive Composites Division and Menzolit total EUR 230m. Through the acquisition, the Polytec group has widened its overall sales to EUR 700m. Staff numbers have risen by 1,300 to 5,000 at 27 sites in 13 countries. If the Intex deal goes through, group turnover will rise to around EUR 800m, and 700 more employees will be added. The concluded and planned deals represent a further step in Polytec´s spectacular expansion drive – mainly through acquisition – from a niche-oriented regional supplier with sales of EUR 89m in 2000 towards a self-set sales target of EUR 1 bn. The strategy has been "masterminded" by Friedrich Huemer, Polytec´s largest shareholder, with 32% of equity.

Menzolit-Fibron was created in 1995 from the merger of two traditional GRP producers under the umbrella of Dynamit Nobel. That company´s plastics arm, Dynamit Nobel Kunststoff, was bought by Plastal in 2005 – see Plasteurope.com Web of 17.11.2005. With 1,300 employees at eight sites, including five in Germany, and annual sales of EUR 169m, Menzolit-Fibron is one of the leading manufacturers of SMC and LFT components, largely for automotive applications. Its headquarters was recently relocated from Bretten, the original headquarters of Fibron, to Kraichgau-Gochsheim, the birthplace of Menzolit – see Plasteurope.com Web of 17.10.2006.