Riding the sky, snow and wind Leitner Group

RIDING THE SKY, SNOW AND WIND

The multi-activity Leitner Group is now also present in the snowmaking sector, as Barbara Rossi learnt from Mr Giorgio Pilotti the sales director.

The South Tyrol based group now holds shares in about 70 companies, but its core companies are the seven entities which it wholly owns, namely Leitner Ropeways, Poma, Agudio, Mini Metro, Prinoth, Leitner Wind and Demac Lenko. Demac Lenko is the most recent addition to the group, born out of the strategic partnership of Leitner with Demac, a company in which the group holds a significant stake, and together with which it has wholly acquired, as recently as the beginning of 2011, the Swedish based company Lenko, including all its branches in Austria, Italy, the USA and Canada. The main sectors in which the group operates are cableways for mountain and urban people transport (Leitner Ropeways and Poma), as well as for moving goods (Agudio), cableways for urban public transport (Minimetro), snow groomers, track-driven and utility vehicles (Prinoth), and wind power systems (Leitwind). Demac Lenko has allowed the Leitner Group to re-enter the snowmaking field in which the group was present in the 80s and 90s. This means that now the group has the most complete range of winter and alpine tech-

nology products at international level, thus acting as a turnkey system supplier.

The group had a very successful 2010, achieving a turnover of €700 million, equal to a 14 per cent increase on the previous year’s figures, a particularly outstanding result considering the world economic situation. At present, 2781 people work for the group at worldwide level, with an overall number increase of 300 from the previous year, and globally there are almost one hundred sales offices and eight production sites, based at Vitipeno (South Tyrol, Italy), Montmélian (France), Grand Junction (USA), Telfs (Austria), Chennai (India), Bejing (China), Starà L’ubovna (Slovakia) and at a Canadian location. Generally all the safety components, whose high quality is vital for products employed in the transport of people, are manufactured in Vipiteno and then exported to other countries, while other types of components may be produced abroad.

The group has recently made important investments, starting with the 2500 m2 extension of its Telfs site, the restructuring of the Slovakian production facility, the opening of the Beijing plant and the previously mentioned acquisition of the Demac and Lenko shares. Alongside this, Prinoth has also acquired shares of AHWI, with which it now has a strategic alliance, and thanks to which the company has been able to widen its range of utility vehicles and to enter the field of renewable energy. This increase in the range of products on offer has made Prinoth one of the two group companies undergoing the most rapid growth, alongside Leitwind, which is benefiting from the increasing interest in and growth of the wind power sector originating both from Italy and abroad.

Research and development plays a fundamental role in the group’s life and in 2010 €19.5 million was invested in product technological development in all the different operative sectors, representing a 25.8 per cent increase over the previous year. Numerous staff training courses at various levels are also organised, so as to have highly skilled staff able to face future challenges.

An exciting 2011

Through its companies the group has carried out numerous important projects, such as the renovation of the historical Roosevelt Tramway in New York (Leitner Ropeways and Poma). The group is currently involved in several other projects, which will be completed by the end of the year, including various new cableways in the Italian and Austrian Alps, for instance three eight-seater vehicle cableways, connecting the skiing area of Pinzolo with Madonna di Campiglio (Italian Alps), two eight seat cableways and a six-seater chairlift in Finkeberg, Austria, as well as, still in Austria, a six seat chairlift and an eight-seater cableway in Goldeck, Carinzia. In addition to this, the newly established Lenko-Demag is undertaking an important project, at Plan the Corones, near Brunico (South Tirol), a winter resort where a new 10-seater Ried cableway has been completed and where almost all the snow groomers are Prinoth branded. Furthermore, the group is also involved in urban transport projects, notably a 10-seater cableway designed for the Colombian town of Santiago de Cali and an eight-seater cableway for the Black Sea town of Ordu, Turkey. This year the group has also been involved in cableway and chairlift projects in Romania, both for ski resorts and urban transport.

MiniMetro will complete the new funicular ‘Skylink’, at the futuristic ‘Squaire’ Frankfurt Airport development and the Cairo ‘Airport Shuttle’, which will transfer over 2000 passengers an hour, between three terminals, covering a distance of over 1.8km. This year Prinoth has also presented its new Leitwolf, the first series of snow groomers in the world to comply with Euromot IIIB legislation and part of Prinoth’s ‘Clean Motion’ project, whose goal is that of achieving clean tracks in an environmentally friendly way, with extremely efficient vehicles, thus also offering cost-saving advantages. In terms of wind power Leitwind is building a 3MW wind power generator within a research and development park at Lelystad, one hour from Amsterdam, as well as being involved in numerous wind power parks, both in Italy and abroad.

Leitner products are distributed at the global level although historically its core markets are linked to countries where winter sports play an important role, such as the Scandinavian and German speaking nations, Italy, France, the USA and Canada. More recently eastern European states, where an increasing number of the population travel abroad to practise winter sports, have become interested in developing their own winter ski resorts. In addition to this, today’s significant markets are Romania, Turkey and Colombia, thanks to urban people transport projects, as well as, obviously, China. In general the projects in emerging countries offer scope for the building of new facilities (while in Italy the projects in which the company is involved mainly consist of the refurbishment of existing ski resorts). However, the group is not focusing on any one market in particular, but follows all the different sectors with a lot of interest, always deploying in all its activities the quality control focus vital to people transport systems which has now become embedded in the company philosophy. n