July 15, 2002—European aerospace group EADS and the Jenoptik technology group are to merge their facility management activities, creating one of the largest independent FM providers in Europe which will be able to deliver services across several countries.
Jenoptiks subsidiary, M+W Zander Facility Management will merge with the EADS company, D.I.B. – Gesellschaft fr Standortbetreiberdienste (Society for Facility Operational Services).
The merger to create M+W Zander – D.I.B. Facility Management was jointly announced at a press conference in Stuttgart yesterday by Jrgen Giessmann, member of the Jenoptik executive board and chairman of the board of M+W Zander Holding AG; Hans Peter Ring, senior vice president of EADS and chairman of the D.I.B. supervisory board, and Dr. Wolfgang Hfele, future chairman of the new company’s management.
EADS will control 30.9% of the company, with Jenoptik holding 69.1% through M+W Zander Holding AG.
DIB provides services to EADS’ Technology and Innovation Park at Ottobrunn near Munich, as well as for a number of financial services companies throughout southern Germany. The company was outsourced from Daimler-Benz Aerospace (Dasa) in 1995, employs around 700 staff and had turnover of almost Eur100m (64m) last year.
M+W Zander, active in both facility engineering and facility management, has around 4,800 employees and achieved turnover of Eur1.67bn (1.1bn) last year. The companys core capability is the turnkey engineering of high-tech production facilities for the electronics, pharmaceuticals, food and biotechnology industries.
The companys FM arm employs 1,400 staff and has turnover of approximately Eur200m (128m). IBM awarded the management of all its sites in central and eastern Europe to M+W Zander Facility Management last year. Other recent contract wins include the management of a major bank in southern Germany and work for the European Organization for Nuclear Research’s (CERN) centre in Switzerland.
The partners say DIB’s facility management experience with complex aerospace facilities will provide the new company with further growth potential. DIB is also active in business areas in which M+W Zander Facility Management has little presence such as security and communications technology.
The new joint venture will focus on two growth paths: the total management of major sites in the industrial and financial sectors; and the expansion of the company’s European market presence through new branches and strategic alliances.
—Richard Byatt
Reprinted with permission; copyright 2002 i-FM
