Soudronic

Soudronic Holding AG
legal form	Corporation
founding	1953
Seat	Bergdietikon , Switzerland
management	Rolf Geide ; ( CEO ) ; Shlomo Wyler ; ( Chairman of the Board )
Number of employees	approx. 600 (2020)
sales	223 million CHF (2005)
Branch	mechanical engineering
Website	www.soudronic.com

The Soudronic Holding AG , headquartered in Bergdietikon is an internationally active Swiss company group on industrial welding technologies specializes. The company develops, produces and installs resistance welding machines and complete systems for the manufacture of cans , lids and larger metal containers such as buckets and barrels .

As the world market leader for production systems for metal packaging, Soudronic employs more than 600 people and has production sites in Switzerland, France, Italy, Germany and China. In 2005 the company achieved sales of 223 million Swiss francs.

history

The company was founded in 1953 by Paul Opprecht and initially manufactured controls for resistance welding machines. Later the production of the machines was added. 1973 Soudronic's first foreign subsidiary was founded in New York. This was responsible for sales, service and spare parts in the USA and Canada.

In 1981 Soudronic acquired a production facility in Neftenbach . The location there then specialized in the production of welding systems for the automotive industry and, alongside the metal packaging division, formed the second mainstay of Soudronic.

In the mid-1980s, Paul Opprecht withdrew from active day-to-day business, but remained the owner. After his death, the owner family sold the company. Through a management buy-out the Soudronic arrived group to 25 percent in the possession of management and 75 per cent in the possession of the British private equity firm Doughty Hanson & Co . In 2001, the Swiss private equity company Capvis (35%), together with the financial investor Gilde (38%) and management (27%), bought the meanwhile world market leading Soudronic Group from Doughty Hanson & Co in a second management buyout.

In 2005, Soudronic's automotive division was initially converted into a separate unit under the name Soudronic Automotive , and in 2006 it was completely separated from the Soudronic Group under the name Soutec and sold to the German VTC Group as an independent company. In the same year, Soudronic, which was now fully focused on production systems for metal packaging, was sold to a group of shareholders consisting of the Swiss Keystone Group Holding, managed by Giorgio Laurenti, and the German Leonhardt Holding . The Keystone Group holds the majority with 52 percent, while the remaining 48 percent are each held by Leonhardt Holding and Soudronic management. With a 90% market share, Soudronic AG is one of the largest companies that focus on the production of production systems for metal packaging.