Airborne growth

“Fincoil brings two new dimensions to the air heat exchanger field that our customers can benefit from,” says Göran Hedbys, general manager OEM and Comfort & Refrigeration at Alfa Laval. “It increases our presence in the Nordic and North East European markets, and it supplements our offering with valuable products and application knowledge about industrial power cooling.”

The Fincoil headquarters are situated in Vantaa, outside Helsinki in Finland, along with its production facilities and research centre. Fincoil’s production plant increases Alfa Laval’s total manufacturing capacity for air-related products.

 “These types of products are hard to transport because of their large size, so it’s important to have production close to the customers,” says Hedbys.

Fincoil Managing Director Jyrki Lindholm adds, “Big customers who are doing business on a worldwide scale want global suppliers, so Alfa Laval and Fincoil’s combined strength should be of value to them.” 

“In regard to industrial power cooling, Alfa Laval and Fincoil are an excellent match,” says Peter Carlberg, segment manager for Marine & Diesel at Alfa Laval. “We have worked on a small scale with industrial power cooling for many years, but now we will instantly become one of the major players in this field. Fincoil not only brings new products to the table but, more importantly, an invaluable process and application know-how.”

Together with Alfa Laval’s global sales organization, this creates an unbeatable combination, Carlberg says. “We have a strong international market presence and a comprehensive service network,” he says. “Customers can feel secure knowing that they can get service from someone nearby and in their own language.”

Special competence in power cooling

Fincoil's supplies include a comprehensive range of air coolers, condensers and dry coolers for refrigeration duties in, for instance, power plants, food and beverage processing industries as well as for HVAC applications and commercial refrigeration.

Its developments within industrial power cooling look particularly good. Over the past 10 years, this part of Fincoil’s business has grown steadily and now represents a considerable part of the company’s turnover. Fincoil’s largest customer in this field is Wärtsilä, the global market leader for power plant diesel engines. Other important customers are Cummins, MAN and Rolls-Royce.

Jyrki Lindholm, Managing Director of Fincoil.Lindholm says the vast majority of Fincoil’s customers are positive about the change in ownership. One major advantage is that Alfa Laval intends to invest in production optimization as well as in research and development. “We will become part of Alfa Laval’s core business,” Lindholm says.

Fincoil will be integrated into Alfa Laval’s global Air Business Centre. The objective is to reach full integration by July 2008.

 The expansion continues

The recent acquisition of the Finnish company Fincoil supplements Alfa Laval’s product range as well as its geographical spread for air heat exchangers.

Fincoil is Alfa Laval’s second acquisition aimed at strengthening its position on the global industrial cooling and refrigeration market. In the middle of 2007 Alfa Laval acquired the Dutch company Helpman, a leading company in Europe for air heat exchangers used in the sensitive logistical chain for food.

“Adding Fincoil’s products and know-how further strengthens Alfa Laval’s position on the European market,” says Göran Hedbys, general manager OEM and Comfort & Refrigeration at Alfa Laval. “We now have manufacturing centres close to our customers in Western, Northern and Southern Europe and a wide range of products and know-how covering a variety of customer segments.”
Hedbys says Alfa Laval has everything needed to be a complete provider for air heat exchangers within Europe.

“We hope to build a stronger relationship with our customers now that we can offer the whole range of products,” he says. “It will also be easier for them to do business, as they can turn to one supplier only.”

The next step for Alfa Laval is to increase the availability of its comprehensive range of air heat exchanger to customers worldwide. “We have the ambition to be a market leader in everything we do – something that influences our customers in a positive way as well,” Hedbys says.