November 17
14
I
ndustrIal
C
omputIng
& C
ommunICatIon
Targeting new vertical markets and
increasing internationality
Interview with the Managment of Garz & Fricke
AFINUM has invested
in Garz & Fricke with
headquarters in Hamburg.
Company founders Matthias Fricke
and Manfred Garz explain
the reason behind this decision.
Boards
&
Solutions:
AFINUM typically
invests in the healthy medium-sized sector.
What will the inflowing capital be used for?
Manfred Garz:
The main idea is to use the
inflowing capital to finance growth measures
that we would not be able to implement at the
desired pace otherwise. We intend to develop
local sales in the German-speaking countries,
which we are currently focusing on, and to
increase international sales in Europe and
North America. In addition, our engineering
and in-house production capacities will be
significantly expanded, because we also want
to maintain our reputation for high quality
and supplier reliability in the future of course,
even with an increasing number of clients and
projects.
Boards
&
Solutions:
How high is the invest-
ment in the company, in euros and as a per-
centage?
Manfred Garz:
It is important to guarantee
continuity, and we have done just that. We –
the two f ounders Manfred Garz and Matthias
Fricke – are going to remain crucially involved
in the company in any eventuality and con-
tinue to manage operations as the sole man-
aging directors. AFINUM holds a majority
interest in Garz & Fricke GmbH, but the par-
ties involved have agreed not to publish any
further details about the exact percentage or
the purchase price.
Boards
&
Solutions:
Is the investment set for
a certain time period?
Matthias Fricke:
The main goal of the invest-
ment is to financially support further growth
measures such as foreign trade and the devel-
opment of small/new industry segments. In that
respect, there is no time objective for the dura-
tion of the financial investment of AFINUM.
Boards
&
Solutions:
What are the favoured
future target markets, and what are your plans
for international expansion?
Mattias Fricke:
Of course, those areas where
we are market leaders or particularly strong,
such as control and operating units and inter-
faces for cigarette-vending machines with
telemetry, so called smart-vending. This
so-called smart vending was virtually already
an IoT application before this term was even
created. Our clients – OEMs and systems
integrators – mainly come from the vending
machine, restaurant electronics, safety/secu-
rity technology, medical and laboratory tech-
nology, digital signage, industry automation,
and transportation sectors. This also applies
to operating units for professional high-end
coffee machines for restaurants and catering.
We are well-positioned in the field of HMIs
for laboratory technology, which will be devel-
oped further in the future; we also intend to
grow in the associated medical sector. Interna-
tionally, we are planning to increase our base
of clients and sales partners in Europe sig-
nificantly. We have also earmarked increased
involvement in North America.
Boards
&
Solutions:
“…and continue to man-
age operations as the sole managing directors”
– What will this look like?
Manfred Garz:
As we have already said, opera-
tions will continue to bemanaged by us, and we
will of course keep an eye on strategy – remem-
ber that we by now have more than 25 years of
experience. In the case of large-scale strategic
decisions or associated large financial invest-
ments, AFINUM is of course also involved, and
we will come to an agreement beforehand. We
even welcome this involvement, because one of
the aims of the investment was to involve the
high level of expertise of AFINUM in many
areas as well as capital, for example in potential
further acquisitions etc.
Boards
&
Solutions:
Can you tell us a bit
about the main points of your strategy?
Matthias Fricke (Garz
&
Fricke), Elias Tuerk (AFINUM),
Manfred Garz (Garz
&
Fricke) and Kai Roolf (AFINUM)
