A major step forwards in fulfilling its international expansion strategy.
Belgian based NV Christeyns is pleased to announce that it has acquired the Czech Republic based company L.C.E. Odry (LCE).
LCE was established in 2003 and has rapidly developed into a leading player in the industrial detergent market in the Czech and Slovak markets . In the last year a subsidiary has also been founded in Warsaw to be able to better service the Polish market.
LCE employs a dedicated team of highly-skilled laundry specialists, focussing solely on this market. It offers a full range of detergents, equipment and services to large professional laundries, offering real knowledge and added-value to its customer base. LCE has its own production facilities, based in Odry (near Ostrava ) in the Czech Republic , supplying both the home and export markets.
Christeyns has the ambition – in line with previous acquisitions - to build upon the strengths of the acquired business and to use the LCE infrastructure for its future expansion into the CEE markets. All management and staff will remain with the business, and a major investment plan to increase plant capacity will be undertaken soon after final closing of the deal.
“The takeover fits perfectly with the further growth strategy of our laundry division”, says Alain Bostoen , managing director of Christeyns. “With an average annual growth rate of over 20% over the last 15 years Christeyns had already acquired an international dimension. With this exciting new project we will expand our laundry business into some new, promising markets with a very big growth potential. In addition the professional expertise of our new employees will allow us to fully exploit our new market position.”
Christeyns is a Belgian chemicals and detergents group active in various areas. The Christeyns group employs 430 people with its headquarters in Ghent , Belgium and subsidiaries across Europe and Morocco . Christeyns had a consolidated turnover of over € 124 Mio in 2007.
The Laundry Division represents the main part of the consolidated turnover and supplies industrial laundries with a full package of detergents and auxiliary chemicals, dosing equipment and water and energy saving systems.