Recycling machinery maker Lindner Recyclingtech GmbH is expanding the company's presence in France through a new sales and service subsidiary in cooperation with Groupe Cimme.
"[Lindner France] wants to get closer to its customers and strengthen its position on the French recycling market," the company said in announcing the new approach.
"France is an important market for us. Setting up Lindner France is crucial if we want to look after our French customers even more efficiently and offer them even better service," said Michael Lackner, managing director at Lindner, in a statement. "Thanks to our mobile shredders and our solutions for waste-to-energy and plastics recycling, we already have a strong presence on the French market.
"Through local contact points and service partners, we, as a brand manufacturer, also want to offer our customers the best possible service. That's our declared goal," he added.
Lindner France is being described as "a new sales and service subsidiary of Lindner Recyclingtech, working together closely with the headquarters in Austria and also local distributors, that will be led by Lindner France. Manufacturing will remain completely in Austria," the company said in an email interview.
"The need is clearly to be closer to the customer and strengthen our position in France with a local subsidiary," Lindner said.
The new organization is based in Seclin, France, with a territory covering the entire country. Lindner describes the country as "a very important market with still a lot of potential."
"We've been considering the decision for quite some time, and yes, we are also thinking about establishing a local Lindner presence in other locations as well. But we cannot let you know yet where," Lindner said in the email interview.
The initial steps in creating Lindner France includes hiring both a managing director and director of sales for the territory with more hiring in the future, Lindner said.
François Defrenne, president of Groupe Cimme, is the managing director of Lindner France, and Vincent Roger is sales director, the company said.
"With the foundation of Lindner France, we have reached an important milestone for increased customer proximity. We are looking forward to a great cooperation and to the projects we can implement together in the future," Defrenne said in a separate announcement regarding the new subsidiary.
Lindner characterized the move as "an important strategic step in its history."
"What we've learned is that, in certain markets, you can only be successful with a local subsidiary with local employees — regarding language, culture and deeper market insights. That is why we take this important step into the French market and are looking forward to the upcoming projects developing the French waste management and recycling market further," Lindner said in the email interview.
Groupe Cimme offers equipment for sale or rent, both new and used, from manufacturers including Toyota, Volvo, Manitou, Fuchs, McCloskey and now Lindner, according to the company's website.
Word of the new sales and service subsidiary for France follows a recent move by Lindner to combine its Lindner Washtech operations in a new holding company with Erema called Blueone Solutions. Blueone, owned 50-50 by each firm, "[leverages] both companies' expertise and jointly [executes] research projects to create industry standards in plastic recycling."
Lindner also recently opened new production facilities in Spittal an der Drau, Austria, valued at 48 million euros. It was a move that increased production capacity and created manufacturing efficiencies, Lackner said in a previous interview.