Hüller Hille

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Hüller Hille GmbH
legal form GmbH
founding 1923 (Hüller)
1947 (Diedesheim)
Seat Mosbach
management Bingcheng Zhang
Meng Li
Number of employees ~ 170
Branch Machine tools
Website www.hueller-hille.com
Status: 2020

The Hüller Hille GmbH is a German company in the field of machine tool manufacturing . Hüller Hille has specialized in 4 and 5-axis machining centers and markets its machines mainly for applications in the automotive, commercial and aircraft construction.

history

Karl Hüller GmbH

In 1923 Karl Hüller founded the company Vorrichtungsbau AG in Ludwigsburg , which was later renamed Karl Hüller GmbH . This manufactured devices, cutting and die tools as well as drilling units. With a single thread cutting machine, Hüller founded the future construction of special machines in 1931. The construction of rotary indexing table machines, hydraulic controls and larger semi-automatic production lines began in the 1930s. After the beginning of the Second World War, special machines in particular were built for machining crank and gear housings, which were required for equipping the army and the air force. After the war, Carl Zeiss and Opel were among the customers who were supplied with grinding and lapping machines for processing eyeglass lenses and entire transfer lines for processing gear housings. It was not until 1954 that standard machine tools such as console milling machines, automatic lathes and automatic drilling machines were added to the product range. Company founder Hüller died in 1965.

Machine factory Diedesheim

In addition to Karl Hüller GmbH, the Diedesheim machine factory from the Mosbach district of Diedesheim is a second predecessor company of Hüller Hille, the date of its establishment is also officially referred to as the founding date of Hüller Hille. The Diedesheim machine factory was established in 1947 from the remains of a dismantled production facility of the Daimler-Benz group in Obrigheim , which manufactured components for aircraft engine construction at this location during the war. In fact, the production of crankcases, cylinder heads, cylinder blocks and equipment supports was only moved from Genshagen in Brandenburg to Obrigheim in mid-1944 . The former head of accounting at Daimler-Benz decided to found a new company after dismantling the production facilities and employed between 30 and 50 people in the first few years, most of whom were former employees of Daimler-Benz. While the company was limited to the production of spare parts for cars and the overhaul of old machine tools in the beginning, the company began building its own turret drilling machines and other special machines in 1949. Well-known companies in the field of vehicle and engine construction such as Daimler-Benz, NSU , Klöckner-Humboldt-Deutz and Lanz were soon among the customers of Maschinenfabrik Diedesheim. In the following decades the product range was expanded, so in 1975 the first vertical lathe with numerical control was completed. In 1984 the machine factory lost its independence and was taken over by Thyssen Maschinenbau .

Merger under Thyssen

After a takeover in 1975, the Ludwigsburg Karl Hüller GmbH belonged to Rheinstahl (later Thyssen). At that time, the tool company Hille Henschel already belonged to Rheinstahl , which was merged with Karl Hüller to form Hüller Hille GmbH . Under Thyssen, Hüller Hille and Maschinenfabrik Diedesheim were merged from 1994 onwards. The merged company continued to operate as Hüller Hille GmbH. In 2003, ThyssenKrupp MetalCutting GmbH was founded, in which all manufacturers of cutting machines within the ThyssenKrupp Group were brought together. When ThyssenKrupp MetalCutting GmbH was taken over by the US company Maxcor, the German ownership of the associated companies, including Hüller Hille, ended in 2005. Maxcor then founded the company MAG Industrial Automation , into which Hüller Hille was incorporated. While Hüller Hille GmbH achieved sales of 102 million euros in 2008, this fell in the following year by more than 45% to 56 million euros. Despite this sharp drop in sales in the context of the global financial crisis, Hüller Hille was able to record the largest single order in its history in 2011, when Foxconn ordered 100 machining centers. Three years later, in 2014, MAG separated from its Industrial Equipment division and sold it to the Taiwanese Fair Friend Group (FFG). Hüller Hille was again affected by this. Independently of this sale, the rest of the MAG Group was taken over completely by FFG in 2015 and continues to exist today independently of Hüller Hille.

Development after the sale by ThyssenKrupp

Another sale of Hüller Hille was completed in 2017 when the company with its Diedesheim location was taken over by Zuse Holding GmbH. Zuse itself is an investment company controlled by the Hong Kong- based CW Group . This takeover resulted in a change of name to Zuse Hüller Hille Werkzeugmaschinen GmbH . FFG had previously given up the Diedesheim location and prepared for closure. But even soon after the takeover by Zuse, criticism of the new investor was loud. According to media reports, the managing director was dismissed at short notice in 2018, customer orders were no longer served and salary payments to employees were not made in 2019 or were delayed. According to a statement by a works council, there is information that the investor William Wong, Managing Director of Zuse and Chairman and CEO of the CW Group, has founded a new company in the machine tool industry in Singapore, whose products are sold under the name of Zuse. A representative of IG Metall described this process as a "know-how theft". At the same time, the listed CW Group filed for bankruptcy. On April 18, 2019, Zuse Hüller Hille also filed for insolvency after a third-party application for bankruptcy had previously been filed. As a new investor, a German subsidiary of the investment company Visionmax Asset Management Co. Ltd. Visionmax has its headquarters in Beijing and was previously indirectly involved in a joint venture with the CW Group.

Name changed back to Hüller Hille GmbH

On October 1, 2019, the company was taken over by Visionmax Germany GmbH, a subsidiary of the Chinese investor Visionmax Asset Management Co. Ltd., and received its original company name "Hüller Hille" again. The Visionmax Capital Group, headquartered in Beijing, was founded in 2006 and manages and invests in a balanced portfolio of assets.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mercedes Benz: Relocation of the Genshagen aircraft engine plant , accessed on June 15, 2019
  2. ↑ Federal Gazette: Annual financial statements of Hüller Hille GmbH from 2008 and 2009 , accessed on June 15, 2019
  3. ↑ Stuttgarter Zeitung: Taiwanese conglomerate buys MAG , accessed on June 15, 2019
  4. ↑ produktion.de: Zuse Holding takes over Hüller Hille Diedesheim , accessed on June 15, 2019
  5. ^ Hüller Hille: History , accessed on June 15, 2019
  6. ↑ Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung: Instead of closing now, anniversary and new start , accessed on June 15, 2019
  7. ↑ Zuse Automation: About Zuse Automation , accessed June 15, 2019
  8. ^ CW Group: Management , accessed June 15, 2019
  9. ^ Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung: Is the Asian investor bleeding the company to death? , accessed June 15, 2019
  10. ^ Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung: Mosbacher workforce waives money , accessed on June 15, 2019
  11. ↑ Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung: Renewed turnaround secures jobs , accessed on June 15, 2019
  12. ↑ dgap.de: CW Group Forms a JV Company with Zhejiang Hua Hang Leveraging the Opportunities Presented by "Industry 4.0" To Strengthen the Presence in the PRC Market , accessed on June 15, 2019
  13. ↑ Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung: No arms company joins Hüller Hille , accessed on February 7, 2020
  14. ^ Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung: Takeover of Zuse Hüller Hille under one roof , accessed on February 7, 2020