Dürr bundles painting and final assembly technology in new division

Dürr will merge the former Paint and Final Assembly Systems and Application Technology divisions, which mainly serve the automotive industry, into the new Automotive division at the beginning of 2025. In future, the Dürr Group will bundle its business activities in three divisions - Automotive, Industrial Automation and Woodworking - instead of five divisions as before. Dr. Jochen Weyrauch, CEO of Dürr AG: "The simplification of the corporate structure is the next logical step in the implementation of the Group strategy. By merging our automotive activities, we will be in an even better position in future to develop optimally coordinated overall solutions in painting technology, to serve our customers from a single source and to process complex system orders even more efficiently. There will also be new impetus for expanding the service business." Weyrauch continues: "The Clean Technology Systems division is a real success story and has developed into a leading global provider of environmental technology within the Group. We are now examining strategic options for these activities so that the diverse growth potential in this field can be better exploited". The battery business with technologies for electrode production, which was previously also part of the Clean Technology Systems division, will now become part of the Industrial Automation division. There will be no further changes in Industrial Automation, nor in the Woodworking Division (HOMAG). By merging its automotive activities into one division, Dürr says it is creating the conditions for more efficient customer support in the automotive industry. This applies in particular to painting technology, by far the Group's largest automotive area. This business, which recently generated sales of around € 2 billion, will be managed uniformly under one roof from the beginning of 2025. Already today, more than three quarters of the paint shop business are so-called system projects, which are handled jointly by Paint and Final Assembly Systems and Application Technology.

The merger underlines Dürr's claim to be a "one-stop store" for turnkey paint and final assembly systems from a single source and will enable it to offer its customers even better resource-efficient solutions in the future. In this way, Dürr will help its customers to optimize their total cost of ownership and accelerate the decarbonization of automotive production. By bundling the paint technology business, Dürr is also strengthening its ability to enter into strategic partnership models with its customers, in which the company plans and implements optimally coordinated overall solutions and supports the operation of paint shops with services. In view of the long-term transformation requirements of the automotive industry, customer-focused systems expertise is an important competitive factor for Dürr. The merger of the automotive business will also make order processing even more efficient. This is crucial for business success in plant engineering, especially for large-scale projects. In future, the company will be able to respond even faster to customer inquiries, cover service requirements even more systematically throughout the entire life cycle of its products and thus generate additional growth. The environmental technology division Clean Technology Systems, with sales of around € 500 million, has become the world's leading provider of exhaust air purification technology in recent years. The aim now is to enable the Air Pollution Control Technology and Sound Insulation Systems divisions to develop their business even more successfully and globally in the medium term and to open up new growth paths through additional investments. One of the possible options is to sell the two divisions. The battery business with technologies for electrode production, which previously belonged to the Clean Technology Systems division, remains the core business and will be assigned to the Industrial Automation division in future. There it will seamlessly complement the existing activities in the areas of sustainable energy generation and storage as well as e-mobility.