Balcke-Dürr
| Balcke-Dürr | |
|---|---|
| legal form | GmbH |
| founding | 1894 (Balcke) in Bochum and 1883 (Dürr) in Ratingen |
| Seat |
Dusseldorf , Germany
|
| management | Wolf Cornelius, Martin Schalkowski, Arne Amann |
| Number of employees | > 1000 |
| Branch | System components & service |
| Website | balcke-duerr.com |
The Balcke-Dürr GmbH is a German company of medium size, whose story is an example of the many upheavals of German industry in the last century. The growth of the company was affected by various changes, there were cooperations , mergers , IPOs and name changes .
Company history
MAG Balcke and Dürr-Werke AG
The Balcke-Dürr company was formed in 1972 through the merger of the Maschinenbau-Aktiengesellschaft Balcke (MAG Balcke) based in Bochum with the Dürr works based in Ratingen .
Balcke & Co. / MAG Balcke
The company was founded as the engineering office Balcke & Co. by the engineer Hans Joachim Balcke from Oberhausen and the businessman Otto Kleinschmidt on October 1, 1894 in Bochum. In addition to the two founders, the workforce in the form of three employees initially worked with so-called open graduation towers . The increasing industrialization went hand in hand with the demand for a higher amount of cooling water, which could be met with the invention of the chimney cooler by Hans Joachim Balcke. The customers were supplied with extensive solutions for the so-called cold end of steam processes in power plants and in the chemical industry, with all other components ( cooling water pumps , pipelines and condenser with auxiliary equipment) being supplied by specialist companies except for the cooling tower .
From 1896 onwards, the company Bettinger & Balcke was founded in Frankenthal (Palatinate) and further parts could be supplied. In addition, new designs for piston and centrifugal pumps were developed as a result. As early as 1899, the company's growth was taken into account and moved into a new office building, also in Bochum. In 1897, the Dortmunder Bankverein also joined the company as a limited partner . Balcke & Co. was founded in London and also marketed the Balcke patents in Great Britain and Ireland .
In 1905 the Frankenthal pump works was merged with the Bochum parent company to form Maschinenbau- Aktiengesellschaft (MAG) Balcke , whose share capital was 1.5 million marks . While the production of air filters was started in Bochum in the previous years , the company took a stake in Gustav Moll & Co. in Neubeckum in 1911, which became sole owner in 1918. The further development and production of gas and oil firing systems and heat exchangers took place at this location . Production continues there to this day. In 1918 MAG Balcke's total turnover was 14 million marks with 1,100 employees.
In the 1920s, apparatus engineering (i.e. degasser , evaporator systems, low and high pressure preheaters) was established as a second pillar alongside cooling tower construction. Numerous products from Neubeckum and Frankenthal received worldwide recognition. The term a Balcke was used as a synonym for a cooling tower . At the end of the 1920s, it had nine branches in Germany and four more in Europe . As a result of the global economic crisis that began in 1929, sales fell by 50% and the share capital was reduced to 2.1 million Reichsmarks . After only 680 employees were employed at the beginning of the 1930s, the number of employees rose again to 1200 in 1937 after the upturn in 1934. Sales also rose again - also due to numerous large orders from the USSR ; the share capital was increased to 3.5 million Reichsmarks. During the war between 1943 and 1945, large parts of the technical and commercial documents were lost, and office buildings and workshops were destroyed. The new administration building in Bochum was already ready for occupancy in 1949/1950, after work had previously been carried out on the reworking of the lost documents, some in private apartments.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the large power plants on the Rhine and Ruhr in particular were equipped with large fan cooling towers ( coffee grinder type ). 34 of these cooling towers alone were built for the Frimmersdorf power plant . During the same period, the apparatus construction benefited from the increasing number of newly built nuclear power plants . In 1972 around 1,500 people were employed; in the short fiscal year (January 1 to September 30, 1972), sales of 80 million DM and incoming orders of 83 million DM were achieved. At that time, there were 18 agencies in Europe and licensees worldwide. However, this was MAG Balcke's last balance sheet , as it was merged with Dürr-Werke AG in Ratingen, a subsidiary of Deutsche Babcock in Oberhausen , on October 1, 1972 .
Düsseldorf-Ratinger tubular boiler factory Dürr & Co. / Dürrwerke AG
1883 founded Walther Dürr and Gustav Dürr in Ratingen in the form of a general partnership , the Dusseldorf-Ratingen tube boiler factory Dürr & Co. , which in 1889 strange to receive capital from the company Dürr Dusseldorf-Ratingen tube boiler factory formerly & Co. was converted into a corporation. The company was shortened to Dürrwerke AG in 1924 .
The main product was the single-chamber water tube boiler known as the “Dürr boiler” . In 1907 the production of Garbe vertical tube boilers began . In total, more than 2,200 Dürr boilers have been built since 1883. In 1932 the first "Dürr high-pressure boiler" was built, a steep tube boiler for 78 tons of steam per hour at an operating pressure of 117 atmospheres , for operation with chemically treated feed water . In the years and decades that followed, further innovations were to follow; the permanent expansion was only slowed down briefly by the world wars . Dürrwerke AG was able to establish itself on the international market, especially in the areas of wet cooling, apparatus engineering and boiler construction. In the second half of the 20th century, the majority of Dürrwerke AG was sold to Deutsche Babcock , who merged it with MAG Balcke in 1972. At that time, the company employed around 1100 people.
Balcke-Dürr AG
The company that emerged from this was based in Ratingen and started out with a share capital of 22 million DM and around 2,600 employees. In addition to cooling and apparatus construction, boiler construction was henceforth the third pillar of the new company. In the area of dry cooling , high synergy effects could be achieved, as work had previously been carried out separately in the same area. In the other areas, the two former companies complemented each other. In the 1975/1976 business year , sales amounted to DM 331 million and incoming orders were DM 410 million. In the years and decades that followed, things continued to improve: Between 1986 and 1990 sales rose from DM 440 million to DM 480 million, and incoming orders from 340 million DM to 435 million DM. At that time there were eight subsidiaries and four licensees worldwide. Among other things, Balcke-Dürr supplied the boiler for the Reuter West power plant in Berlin .
Balcke-Dürr GmbH as a participation of BDAG
The rapid expansion of Deutsche Babcock and Balcke-Dürr AG made extensive organizational changes necessary. In 1991/1992 an intermediate holding was set up within the Deutsche Babcock group under the leadership of the newly created BDAG, which formed the umbrella for the following groups of companies:
- Balcke-Dürr GmbH
- Krantz TKT
- WABAG
- as well as other companies with a focus on surface technology.
At the same time, the new BDAG (abbreviation for Balcke-Dürr AG ) was floated on the stock exchange . In the same year (1991/1992), the new AG achieved total sales of DM 1.05 billion and incoming orders of around DM 1.15 billion with around 5200 employees. The profit amounted to about 33 million DM. The company was based in Oberhausen. After reunification , numerous companies in the new federal states were taken over and integrated. In the 1996/1997 business year, sales were DM 2.0 billion and incoming orders were DM 2.2 billion for around 5200 employees. The share capital was DM 34 million, 11 foreign representations and 30 subsidiaries and affiliated companies were active for Balcke-Dürr GmbH worldwide. At that time, the technical know-how was so extensive that customers in the power plant sector could be supplied with complete packages , with the exception of the turbine with generator and high-voltage part . At the end of the 1990s, the strategy of the parent company Deutsche Babcock AG was changed. An economic decline of the parent company had already been announced, which should be stopped by the merger of the robust BDAG with the renamed parent Babcock Borsig Aktiengesellschaft to the new Babcock-Borsig AG. As a result, the intermediate holding was dissolved again, and Balcke-Dürr GmbH remained largely unaffected in its existence.
In mid-2002, Babcock-Borsig AG declared itself insolvent, and on September 1, 2002 insolvency proceedings were opened against them. Shortly after these events, Balcke-Dürr GmbH, with around 450 employees at that time, was bought out of the Babcock-Borsig AG bankruptcy estate. The buyer is the American SPX Corp. , which held 100% of the shares in Balcke-Dürr GmbH until the end of 2016.
Balcke-Dürr GmbH as a participation of SPX Corporation
Thanks to the rapid separation from the Babcock-Borsig Group, a largely smooth continuation of business operations could be ensured. 2003 was the acquisition of Hamon Rothemühle Cottrell GmbH i. I., a manufacturer of electrostatic precipitators and rotary heat exchangers . In 2004, the recooling technology was spun off into SPX Cooling Technologies . Since then, Balcke-Dürr GmbH has had four core business areas: power plant and boiler service, flue gas cleaning, heat exchangers and nuclear service. In 2005 MCE Energietechnik in Vienna was taken over and renamed Balcke-Dürr Austria . This was at the 2007 Siemens range Power Generation (PG) sold. From 2005 to 2015, the company's headquarters were again in Ratingen . The company was one of the largest employers in the area. In 2015 the company's headquarters were relocated to Düsseldorf. At the end of 2016, mutares AG, based in Munich, acquired the Balcke-Dürr Group from SPX. The Balcke-Dürr Group now has subsidiaries in Poland, Italy, France, India and China.
Big holdings
In its long history, the Balcke-Dürr GmbH and BDAG were important shares u. a. involved in the following companies:
- Krantz TKT
- WABAG
- Nordex (1996 until Nordex went public in April 2001)
Web links
- Homepage of Balcke-Dürr GmbH
- Early documents and newspaper articles on Balcke-Dürr in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
Individual evidence
- ^ Antje Hagen: German direct investments in Great Britain 1871-1918 . Meeting reports of the Scientific Society at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University. Franz Steiner Verlag, 1997, ISBN 3-515-07152-0 (dissertation).
- ^ Handbook of German stock corporations . 30th edition 1925, volume 1, p. 1041 f.
- ↑ Mutares completes the takeover of Balcke-Dürr | Mutares. Retrieved on February 28, 2018 (German).