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«I can say with some pride that there were many potential buyers, including several turnaround funds, who were interested in this transaction. The fact that a group like Kuka – world leader in robotics with a turnover of 4 billion euros and flagship of German industry – has chosen us, confirms the validity of our proposal». Luigi Maniglio is responsible for the corporate restructuring division of FAI-Futuro all’Impresa, an Italian advisory and investment company founded by Guglielmo Ruggeri and Enrico Scio, which together with Aretè Cocchi Technology, a group specializing in highly innovative niche technologies, has just acquired Reis Robotics, a historic German robotics company with the precise aim of relaunching it and bringing it back to being a point of reference for the sector.
Industrial project
«A project of an industrial nature, and not merely a financial one, proposed by a European consortium was awarded», explains Maniglio. Aretè Cocchi Technology will control 70% of the new corporate composition, while the remaining 30% will go to Fai-Futuro per l’Impresa. «We have a precise development program for Reis Robotics, which integrates and completes our industrial offer perfectly», explains Gino Cocchi, founder and president of the Bologna-based company, which (with the integration of Reis) has a turnover of around 250 million euros and 900 employees working in 14 companies and nine plants in Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, the United States and China. «We currently have three business areas: packaging solutions, technologies for airports and scientific applications – says Cocchi -. Now we add a division dedicated to robotics and industrial automation, a sector in which Reis Robotics has represented true excellence».
History
Founded in 1957 and specialized in customized automation solutions and industrial machines, the German company achieved its best results in the 2000s, with a turnover of 150 million euros and over 1,200 employees. Acquired in 2013 by Kuka, it has gradually lost competitiveness, reaching today a turnover of 40 million, with about 300 employees and a strong deficit. «Internally it still maintains excellent skills and some automation solutions of great excellence, which have not been valued as they should and which we believe can instead be at the center of a development strategy that can bring important results», explains Luigi Maniglio .
Innovation at the heart of the recovery plan
Technology is at the heart of Reis’s development program which envisages, in the three-year period 2024-2025-2026, a growth in turnover to, respectively, 60-70-80 million, leveraging investments in innovation and internationalisation. The company should break even next year, and then move towards profitability levels in line with the best industrial companies in the sector, exceeding 10-15% of turnover, in 2026. The strength of the project, Maniglio reiterates , is in its industrial nature: «Our role, through Fai’s restructuring division, is to give the possibility of relaunching to companies that have the potential to do so, seeking industrial partners of excellence, such as Aretè Cocchi Technology, to ferry these companies towards a solid situation in which to continue to grow with long-term shareholders».