DAMPA_75_years_of_quiet_design_ENG - Flipbook - Page 191
A turnaround
All the while, F.L. Smidth continued in its efforts to sell
DAMPA. Negotiations with the Dutch Van Geel group, located in Boxtel near Eindhoven in the Netherlands, eventually
resulted in its purchase of a 49 per cent shareholding in
September 1993. Van Geel was primarily a maker of cable
management and routing systems, cable trays and cable
ladders but it also owned a small ceiling division, which utilised the same steel profiling technology to make mountings
and panels. Altogether, it had 470 employees and an annual
turnover of 140 million guilder (approximately 488 million
Danish kroner). Together, Van Geel and DAMPA were
Europe’s fifth largest ceiling makers.
Its chairman of DAMPA’s supervisory board, Ole Trolle,
briefed him in very direct terms that his task was to make
DAMPA profitable so that Van Geel would agree to buy the
remaining 51 per cent shareholding, relieving F.L. Smidth of
involvement. In terms of F.L. Smidth and Van Geel’s respective roles, Trolle explained with an automotive metaphor that
he had kept control of the brake, but had handed the steering wheel and accelerator to Jack Van Geel. Bahr was to
take instruction from the latter, unless a decision risked
damaging DAMPA, in which case he was to consult with
Trolle about applying the brake.
Kompan, TNT Arkitekter,
Photo: Morten Schriver, 2011
In the meantime, DAMPA’s managing director Uffe Henriksen had been forced to retire in the autumn of 1995 due to
illness. He had made brave efforts to return the company to
profitability amid the tough and volatile trading conditions of
the European Exchange Rate Mechanism crisis and the early-1990s recession, the origins of which were in the USA.
Jens Ole Bahr was headhunted as his successor, taking up
his post in November 1995. With a master’s degree from
Aarhus Business School, he had a two-decade-long business career in companies such as Mejeriselskabet Danmark (subsequently better known as Arla), the industrial
equipment maker Stenhoj, the construction materials supplier Phønix, the prefabricated house builder Hosby and,
most recently, Brenderup Trailers, a maker of towed car
trailers. Bahr was hired by F.L. Smidth primarily on the basis
of his reputation for turning around troubled businesses.
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