The SCM team at AWISA in Melbourne in July. Photo: SCM Group.
SCM Group’s incorporation of Australian distributor Gabbett Machinery, announced at the AWISA trade show in Melbourne, is just the first in a series of ‘significant investments planned over the next 3-year period, according to Andrea Aureli, CEO of the SCM Group.
“We hope this will enable us to announce quarterly initiatives, taking us into new geographical areas to control our foreign sales networks, as well as technological areas aimed at expanding and extending our product offering,” said Mr Aureli.
The incorporation of its long-established Australian distributor and service operator Gabbett Machinery adds a new building block to its planned acquisitions of increasingly large shares of the world secondary wood processing market – worth EUR 3.5 billion.
“A market of which we control 10-25% according to countries, and in which we are growing at rates well exceeding our budget figures,” added Mr Aureli.
Last year, the Group saw a 10% in sales and expects to close 2016 with a growth rate of over 15% and turnover of EUR600 million.
The dynamics foreseen for Asia and the Pacific are likely to recreate the booming scenario of 2015 (with +60% in the Woodworking Machinery division), “because thanks to our new direct local branch and the expansion of our product range, we expect to further promote our growth,” said Luigi De Vito, director of the Machinery Division.
The Australian market is worth around EUR 100 million in the field of woodworking technologies, a segment of which SCM now holds a 10% share. “Our goal is making the most of our widespread presence in the Australian mainland, to boost our high-tech materials (carbon fibre, plastic, light alloy) processing machinery business,” said Mr Aureli.
Gabbett Machinery, after a two-decade long collaboration with its Rimini-based suppliers, will change its name to SCM Group Australia. Members of the Gabbett family will still be part of the board.
SCM is a family-owned company based in Rimini. It is the world’s second-largest woodworking machinery company (after Germany’s HOMAG), counting three production centres in Italy, 20 branches abroad, 3000 employees and a turnover exceeding EUR 0.5 billion in 2015, of which 90% come from export sales.
