The deal was completed last Wednesday (17 May) and Zünd UK will now be an official subsidiary of Zünd Systemtechnik.
Zünd UK was founded as a privately owned Zünd reseller in 1993 but shares have now been sold by its former owner and managing director Tim Taylor to Zünd Systemtechnik. Taylor has stayed on as UK commercial director and a new managing director, former Hybrid national sales manager Stuart Cole, began in the role in mid-March.
Cole said that in the run-up to the completion of the deal, changes had been taking place steadily behind the scenes to make the transition “as easy as possible”.
He said: “The relationship between Zünd UK and Zünd Switzerland was incredibly strong before this and all this has done is further strengthen that relationship and the commercial ability of the company, but in the outside world nothing really changes.”
Zünd UK has now initiated a recruitment drive, which should see around four to six additional staff brought in to the 30-staff company, in the engineering and sales departments.
“We’ve had some significant growth in sales over the last few months and the requirements are there to continue that growth and support those customers to the levels they need,” added Cole.
In a statement last week, Zünd chief executive Oliver Zünd said: “We are delighted to be able to welcome Zünd Plotting Systems (UK) to our global group of companies. Working with our newest subsidiary, we look forward to strengthening our position in the UK market and continuing to expand our customer base.”
Prior to his role with Hybrid, Cole founded Graphic Printing Technologies (GPT), which was then acquired by Amari Plastics. He said his time with Zünd so far had “been a bit of a journey”.
He added: “You never know quite what a company or relationship is going to be like until you’re on the inside and certainly what I saw from the outside is very much what it is on the inside. It’s very positive from my perspective.”
Based in St Albans, Hertfordshire, Zünd UK distributes and resells Zünd’s digital cutting systems, modules and tools to the UK market.
