Outlook for the year 2025

“The economic situation may be even worse than the already poor mood.”

– Prof. Lars Feld and Prof. Justus Haucap at ‘The Pioneer’ in December 2024 –

It is difficult to be optimistic about the future given the environment in Germany. Too bad. But we do it anyway. Why?

We are niche providers in markets that continue to develop positively.

• The demand for decentralized energy supply is booming thanks to AI – and our customers are specialists in this field.
• Environmental technology remains in high demand, for which we supply complex key components in decanter technology.
• Components for submarines have an order pipeline until 2030.
• New markets for us in the paper industry continue to develop positively.

Of course, there are also market segments that are weakening significantly. Overall, however, we are fortunate to be in a positive environment with good long-term prospects.

We have invested a lot and will continue to invest a lot in Germany in 2025. This is the way to remain competitive. Employees’ understandable expectations of wage and salary increases that at least offset the rising cost of living must be met. It is no longer possible to offset wage increases through productivity improvements, as was often the case in the last decade.

Unfortunately, not all of our customers can cope with rising prices in international competition. We are currently losing market share to Asian competitors in particular. Our competitors from China and India in particular have become stronger in terms of sales in Europe, while the slowing economy in China is pushing manufacturers into export markets. Their standards in environmental technology or occupational safety have not improved – we know these competitors very well through our former investment in Taiwan. However, marketing and public image have improved considerably, which is why many otherwise down-to-earth SMEs from our customer sector are increasingly buying there. How sustainable is that?

We are and remain grateful to our customers, who continue to stand by us. We are fully committed to offering them the best possible service. This is made possible by many employees at our locations in Radevormwald and Sörup, who put their heart and soul into their work. It is a pleasure and a privilege to work in this team.

This environment in our companies gives us confidence for the year 2025 and far beyond, because as a family business we prefer to think in terms of generations rather than years.

So we are sticking to our guns: we are looking forward to our future!