Page 14 - Plastics News March 2017

CoMPANy NEWS

BASF unveils its biggest Sepro expands in Switzerland

Innovation Campus Asia Pacific oming off its fourth record

in Mumbai, India Csales year in a row, Sepro
Group is once again expanding.

ASF Group has inaugurated its new Innovation The robot and automation leader,
BCampus Asia Pacific, located in Mumbai, India. headquartered in La Roche sur
The project will involve a total expected investment Yon, France, is establishing a new, direct sales and
of up to €50 million from BASF Group, and marks service operation to serve the plastics injection-molding
the Group’s largest research and development industry of Switzerland. Sepro Switzerland will have
(R&D) investment in South Asia. All global research an officeeast of Zurich, where Thomas Scherz has been
operations at BASF Innovation Campus Asia Pacific hired as Swiss German Area Sales Manager. In recognition
(Mumbai) will be housed under BASF Chemicals India of Switzerland’s tri-lingual character, however, the area
Private Limited, a 100% subsidiary of BASF SE. The sales manager for the French-speaking western region of
new innovation campus will expand the company’s the country will be olivier Violy, a 25-year Sepro employee
who also covers southeastern France. Customers in the
Italian-speaking southeast of Switzerland will continue
to work with Sepro’s Italian distributor, SveritalSpA. This
is the third daughter company or local office that Sepro
has inaugurated in just over a year and the eleventh in
all. Sepro Canada opened in January 2016 and Sepro
Austria-Hungary started up in March. This continued
global expansion, along with aggressive expansion of its
product line and technology base, has helped Sepro to
quadruple its turnover since the depths of the Financial
Crisis in 2009. The company expects to report 2016
sales of about EUR 103 million, an increase of 11% over
existing R&D activities in India to include global 2015.“Since we began establishing a local presence in
and regional research on a wide range of specialty important global markets, we have seen our market share
chemicals. The new Innovation Campus includes in these countries grow,” Jean-Michel Renaudeau, CEo of
state-of-the-art laboratories for chemical synthesis, Sepro Group, explains. “We have learned how important
application and process development, as well as it is to be local in the regions we serve. Several of our
analytics.
key customers have operations in Switzerland and so it
It brings all new and existing research and development only makes sense to position ourselves close to them
activities by BASF in Mumbai under one roof. Combined and offer truly local sales and service.” As a leading
with the broad range of current development activities, global supplier of robots, Seproequips all injection-
Innovation Campus Asia Pacific (Mumbai) will enable molding-machine brands from 50 to 5000 tons, whether
global know-how exchange and foster collaboration new or already installed. Sepro’s complete solution
with customers, industrial and academic partners. The includes robots with 3, 5 or 6 axes of motion and all
campus can accommodate up to 300 scientists and will are controlled by the same Visual platform. Thomas
bring together top scientists from India and other parts of Scherzis a Swiss national who has been involved in sales
the world.The Innovation Campus significantly expands and key account service in the plastic packaging and
BASF’s research capacities in India, which were established industrial equipment industries since 2008. He trained
in 2005 and expanded in 2014 to cover agricultural in mechanical engineering and has a diploma in business
research, organic synthesis, molecular modelling and administration, and finance, and recently received his
advanced process research. Diplom-Ingenieur in sales management.

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