Pipe extruder Poloplast plans €20 million investment

Poloplast (Leonding, Austria) extrudes polypropylene pipe and tubing for the water and sewage lines as well as for home and building construction.  The €20 million ($27.1 million) investment in the company's headquarters will be made in equal installments starting in 2011,according to Wolfgang Lux, the processor's managing director. "The investment will be in installments of €4 million per year from 2011 through 2015," explained Lux at a press conference. The monies will be used to fund R&D and as-yet unspecified number of new compounding and pipe extrusion lines, plus molding machines and plant infrastructure.

"The financing (of the new investment) comes entirely out of our cash flow," added Lux. Just last year the company €5.3 million in a new logistics hall, and this year spent €3.5 million on new production lines plus on infrastructure and updates to its laboratory.

The company says the funds spent on R&DD will help it further develop multi-layer pipes and tubing as well as expand its current product portfolio.

Poloplast employs about 260 in Leonding and another 60 at its facility in Ebenhofen, Germany; the investment over the next five years also will increase its payroll by about 65 workers, it says. This year Lux expects the company to reach sales of about €75 million, comparable to the sales it realized in 2009. He says the company Spain as well as Eastern Europe. It exports about 50% of its output, which in total is about 11,500 kilometers (7001 miles) of pipe annually.