Plastic pipe producer Poloplast (Leonding / Austria; www.poloplast.com) achieved record sales in 2020. Revenues were in excess of EUR 100m, the company reports. To set the course for further growth and boost sales organically to EUR 130m by 2025, the company is planning investments of EUR 30m to 40m at its Leonding headquarters over the next five years – depending on the economic situation. This will also involve the creation of 60 new jobs. With sites in Leonding, Ebenhofen / Germany and Colmar / France, Poloplast currently employs around 400 people.

The investments are to be channelled into increasing capacities and also into development. On the production side, further machines are to be acquired, primarily for injection moulding, CFO Konstantin Urbanides explained. The company additionally has to look into “spatial capacity expansion”, he added. With this in mind, Poloplast has already acquired a 6,000 m² plot of land adjacent to its Leonding site. When it comes to investments in development, the company intends to press ahead with digitalisation and automation and will also revise its internal logistics. Poloplast is intending to invest EUR 9m this year already, all of which will come from the current cash flow.

The year 2021 got off to an “excellent” start, explained CEO Wolfgang Lux. Poloplast has also been affected by the current supply difficulties for raw materials. The company is, however, benefiting from the additional external warehouses it rented to cut back the risks involved in the crisis. In strategic terms, the company intends to focus on pipe drainage systems for building construction and on sewer pipes for civil engineering. This focus on higher-value products calls for more mature markets. Against this background, Poloplast will be concentrating on the core markets of Austria, Germany, France, Italy and Scandinavia.

In 2020, Poloplast experienced “maximum volatility”, Lux reported. In spring, the company had to switch to short-time working and shut down machines at times, but production subsequently ran at full capacity again. A strong spurt at the end of the year made up for previous losses.

The investment programme that has now been presented follows a previous one – over the 2016-2020 period, Poloplast had already invested EUR 46m (see Plasteurope.com of 29.01.2018). The company produces plastic pipe systems for buildings, sewage systems and water supply lines. In building engineering, the products are used primarily for drains with a high sound insulation and in comfort ventilation for living spaces. The applications in civil engineering include public residential water supplies and the drainage of bridges. Reference projects include the stadium of football club SK Rapid Wien, the music theatre in Linz, Frankfurt airport and France’s “Mont Saint-Michel” world heritage site.