The Schulz Group (Schulz Unternehmensfamilie e.K.) from Bamberg, Upper Franconia, has agreed to take over Esau & Hueber GmbH, based in Schrobenhausen, Upper Bavaria. The acquisition, the details of which both sides have agreed not to disclose, is expected to be completed later this year.
Two weeks ago, Inside Getraenke and inside.beer already exclusively informed about the forthcoming sale (inside.beer, 22.5.2020). Seller of the business is Bauer Resources, a subsidiary of Bauer AG, also registered in Schrobenhausen which acquired Esau & Hueber 12 years ago in 2008. Despite the same location, both companies did not have a lot of overlap.
Schulz which is within the industry widely known through its subsidiary Kaspar Schulz is a tenth generation family business and a system provider for turnkey brewing and malting plants, stills and special containers. Esau & Hueber’s which offers services and complete systems for the worldwide brewing and beverage industry, complements the portfolio, particularly in the brewing and pharmaceutical sectors.
In the future Esau & Huber will focus on its core business - modular construction in the yeast and ventilation area and plant construction in the cold area of the breweries. A focus of the company's activities should also be on the successful pharmaceutical segment. It is intended to bundle the activities in the field of process automation and to develop them in a targeted manner. At the same time, Esau & Hueber will not continue to operate non profitable business areas such as brewhouse construction that are already successfully covered within the Schulz group.
Both companies want to ensure a smooth transition for customers and employees. "The planned takeover will both succeed in maintaining the Esau & Hueber location in Schrobenhausen and largely taking over all of the employees," said Roman Breuer, Managing Director of Bauer Resources.
It remains to be seen if Esau & Hueber will continue its ‘strategic partnership’ with NDL Craft, a Qingdao-China-based manufacturer of brewhouse equipment and tanks with operations in Detroit, Michigan and Sheffield, England (inside.beer, 4.9.2019). People close to the matter assumed that the ‘strategic partnership’ mainly consisted in transferring technical know-how to China and producing the equipment at a lower cost in Asia. The COVID-19 pandemic and the associated interruption of international supply chains could also lead to a re-evaluation in this sector.
