Monday, 01 December 2008 14:38
Unia
PRESIDENT: Andrzej Guzowski
OPERATIONS: Agricultural machinery
ESTABLISHED: 1882 (New owners 1996)
EMPLOYEES: 1200 persons in 4 factories
www.uniagroup.com
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Unia Group is a renowned Poland-based provider of agricultural machinery produced by Unia Grudziądz, Kraj Kutno, Agromet Brzeg, Pilmet Brzeg and Famarol Słupsk. It uses one of the most revolutionary and impactful applications of modern technology. The truly elemental human need for food has often driven the development of technology and machines. Over the last decades, advances in farm equipment have transformed the way people are employed and produce their food worldwide. The fast development, high quality of machines and customer confidence earned the company a good reputation as a reliable business partner. At present, it is prepared to face new challenges and respond to the demands created by the growing agricultural market.
History paved with takeovers
The origins of the business trace back to the mid-1990s when Andrzej Guzowski, the present managing director and co-owner, set up the private limited liability company Unia Grudziądz in December 1995. Initially, the enterprise leased and soon after took over the assets of Unia Ventzki, a company which was established in 1882. After the World War II Unia Ventzki was nationalised and, following the period of transformation of Polish business entities at the beginning of the 1990s, it declared bankruptcy, which allowed for restructuring of the enterprise. First and foremost, Unia Grudziądz is the provider of agricultural machinery which is used in the process of soil cultivation. Since the company’s business activities were closely linked to sowing, it bought its way into Kraj (Rolmasz), the leading Polish producer of seeders, thus becoming its shareholder in 2002. This event marked the beginning of takeover bids undertaken by Unia Grudziądz on the Polish market. It was not long until the firm took over Agromet Brzeg, a manufacturer of fertilizers, in 2004. Two years later two other companies found itself under Unia Grudziądz’s control: Pilmet, the market leader in the production of sprayers, and Famarol, the producer of hay and silage machinery. In the meantime, the company started the manufacture of potato planters and harvesters based on the licences purchased from a Strzelce Opolskie company which was on the verge of bankruptcy. What is more, the enterprise developed and implemented its own technology for the production of manure spreaders which was subsequently launched in Brzeg. In recent years the company turned over a new leaf by bringing together five producers of agricultural machinery ranging from ploughs, seeders, through spreaders, fertilizers to silage technology. Then, having bought the licence for the production of round balers from DF, the business implemented research and development practices with a view to providing a better customer-oriented service. At the moment the production is handled by four companies located in Grudziądz, Słupsk, Kutno and Brzeg. In each of them the enterprise holds between 90 and 100 percent of the shares.
Plough money into the Polish market
Since its accession to the EU, Poland has been emerging as the biggest European agricultural market and one of the biggest worldwide. It is also extremely diversified, as it consists of both big farms and thousands of small farmsteads whose practices need to be revamped. According to Unia Group’s managing director, such a situation creates very favourable conditions for investments. What is more, nowadays the Polish market needs investors more than ever, which also adds luster to the present market conditions. The question that needs to be addressed is therefore how to invest rather than whether invest or not. The issue received a lot of attention from various restructuring programmes supported by the EU and funds coming from the Polish state budget. As Mr Guzowski claims, thanks to those programmes as many as 40-50 thousand machines with tractors can be sold annually. There are, however, several essential issues which have a great influence on farmers’ decision making process related to investments. The first is raising awareness of the possibility and advantages of being in a possession of a tractor which has 20-30 HP more than the currently owned. The second aspect concerns the need for investment in new technologies which Mr Guzowski compares to “replacing the kinescope TV with the flat screen where the new flat screen is of high technology, more efficient and better equipped.” Farmers are entitled to use extra state funds which they usually allocate for high quality machines and equipment. Last year’s fluctuations of the Polish currency and its recent depreciation against the euro are unquestionably to the detriment of an investment-oriented atmosphere. Apart from the technical problems created by a volatile market and experienced by producers and customers, potential customers are in two minds about such investments. Mr Guzowski, however, takes a firm stand, saying “I do not agree with the statement that a strong zloty attracts producers from the euro zone and a weak zloty is beneficial to the domestic producers. The exchange rate is favourable for all of the participants only when it is stable! Only then earnings and spending of farmers and manufacturers can be calculated using comparable measures.” In other words, a predictable environment is a prerequisite for success.
Current tendencies
In the forthcoming years Poland is not going to become the country of non-till farming, according to Mr Guzowski. Plough will remain the main tool for conventional tillage, yet convertible ploughs are expected to gain ground. It is predicted that sales of convertible ploughs and mounted bed ploughs will be similar in the near future. Given the enormous popularity of 90-100 HP tractor, 3-4 bodies ploughs are expected to become the most marketable products. Since the cultivation presupposes sowing, Polish farmers are rather inclined to buy sowing and cultivation units in lieu of buying two machines separately. Pneumatic seeders will become popular, although they are unlikely to hit the jackpot, so mechanical seeders will maintain its position. “As far as punctual sowers are concerned, this process can go in a different way due to very low prices of corn. Big farms will be looking for solutions to avoid ploughing and this is why, in my opinion, heavy mechanical seeders will be a better choice than pneumatic ones. Time will show if I am right,” says Mr Guzowski. The development of current technologies and the purchase of new, well-equipped machines will minimize the effort and improve the quality of farmers’ work. In the last five years spreaders for mineral fertilizers have become extremely popular. The farmers replaced single-disc spreaders with two-disc ones which came with relatively basic equipment. Many of these machines were brand new, therefore this sector of the market will develop at a slower rate than it used to. However, as Mr Guzowski predicts, the next stage will involve the purchase of two-disc spreaders with electronic controllers and multifunctional spreaders of high volume (5000 and 10000) and high ground clearance which enable to spread lime, mineral fertilizers during the whole process of vegetation. They are also equipped with electronic controllers and GPS analysis systems. In general, the process of fertilizing using organic fertilizers has better prospects than that relying on the use of mineral fertilizers. On the one hand, the market of mineral fertilizers is underdeveloped. On the other hand, the costs of using mineral fertilizers are much higher than those of using organic ones. And finally, the growing importance of green issues and the evolution of cultivation methods indicate that increase in sales of big machinery should be anticipated.
Business offer
During fifteen years of its activity, the company has brought many machines to the Polish market. Since they are designed for different purposes, the machinery is available under several categories: cultivation (i.e. mounted cultivators, mounted reversible ploughs, compact disc cultivators, semi-mounted reversible ploughs, stubble cultivators, subsoilers, heavy disc cultivators, semi-mounted seedbed combination, disc harrows), cultivation and seeding (i.e. tractor-mounted cereal drill, compact disc cultivators, seeding units, cultivating drill machines, harrows, pneumatic drill for sowing corn (mulch sowing), fertilizer drill, tractor-mounted cereal drill, seeders for sowing beets (corn), vegetable planters, aftercrop seeders, semi-mounted sowing and cultivation units (disc), mounted sowing and cultivation units (disc or active), seedbed combinations), hay / silage making (i.e. mowers, shredders, balers, rakes, wrappers, harvesters, loaders), fertilization (i.e. fertilizers and lime spreaders, spreaders), protection (i.e. field crop sprayers, barrow sprayers, orchard sprayers), potatoes (i.e. potato planters, potato and vegetable diggers, potato and vegetable diggers and harvesters) and other (e.g. trailed salt and sand spreaders, transport platforms, tractor-mounted forklift).
