February saw three well known wood treatment and modification companies coming together in an equal partnership within a new company under the banner, WTM Group.
As reported in our March issue, the three companies, Denmark-based WTT, UK-based Tweddle Engineering and France-based MSL will form a new project engineering company, which will market, engineer, source and install small and large wood treatment technology projects on a global scale. Its expected average annual turnover – depending on projects and markets – will be €10-15m.
While the individual team members have known each other for some time, the three companies have not actively worked on projects together before but, as Peter Klaas, CEO and co-owner of WTT and now managing director of WTM Group explained, the partnership is in response to consolidation in the industry.
“We are adjusting to the development of our industry and one of the strong trends has been to consolidate,” said Mr Klaas.
“We see that with our customers and with the preservative suppliers and to us this is a very logical development. The goal is to ensure that our consolidated customers have a reliable and competent timber treatment technology provider.”
The three companies have complementary specialist skills, enabling WTM Group to cover all the bases, he added.
“There is some synergy to be had by merging our engineering departments together. Tweddle has been very innovative with the handling and transportation systems and multi-storage. And its incising technology has potential not just in the UK but on a wider scale.
“MSL has expertise with dipping tanks and the Use Class 2 types of treatment. The primary market for these is in France but it has potential outside of that country.
“As for WTT, our new, second generation thermal modification technology is unique to us, as is the linseed oil drying and treatment process.”
It all adds up to a formidable combination of products and services and, as Mr Klaas said, while they are each established on their local markets, there is the potential to introduce them to the rest of Europe and beyond.
The Tweddle, MSL and WTT brand names will eventually disappear (this includes Tweddle’s Timber Preservation Technologies brand, which launched last year) but there will be a transition period.
“Our brands are important but what is even more important is how our individual teams merge together in a new, shared culture and philosophy in the WTM Group, which will primarily be an engineering team,” said Mr Klaas.
Projects that are already ordered will continue as planned, while new orders will be assigned to the WTM Group and will be allocated to the team/individual best suited to the task.
“We will look at our teams as one shared pool of experience,” said Mr Klaas. “We wouldn’t allocate projects according to location but to specific engineering competencies.”
In this way a UK-based Tweddle engineer might find himself or herself working on a project in Denmark or France, although not necessarily physically. “We will travel back and forth if necessary, of course, but we also have communication technology that enables us to support remote working.
“If the project is in the UK it might be the UK team that would primarily deal with it but it could be the French team. WTT has many customers already, including a very well-established customer base in the UK.
If the enquiry is about linseed oil it would primarily be dealt with by a member of the Danish team because we have a lot of experience but it would always involve members of the British and French teams depending on the sub-tasks that almost any project would involve.”
As it stands at the moment, customers will make enquiries through their existing contacts but in the longer term and as the new WTM identity emerges, a new website and platform for contacting the group will be established.
From a management point of view, along with Mr Klaas as managing director, Tweddle’s MD Joe Watson is director of engineering at WTM, while MSL’s Benoît and Remi Laibe are director of sales and director of operations respectively.
“Joe will be responsible for engineering across the three teams and, as we expand and grow, there will be more teams,” said Mr Klaas. “For example, we will establish a new footprint in North America and that will be integrated into the group.” He added that another way in which customers will benefit from the merging of the three companies is that “we have a command of all the major languages and will be able to communicate with them in their own native language. We know from experience that this is really important to some of our customers”.
Growth for WTM Group will come not just from geographical expansion but also from promoting its portfolio to new markets.
“Within existing technologies we will see growth outside our traditional markets of central Europe, Scandinavia and the UK,” said Mr Klaas. “For example, the linseed oil process is very well established and still growing in Scandinavia but we see that expanding outside of the region.
“I think one of the most important growth areas in terms of technology is thermal modification. When we look at our project pipeline and enquiries, we can see this is really taking off compared to just a year or two ago.
“I also think alternative, sustainable types of processes will drive the increase in demand in the coming years. For example, alternatives to creosote, such as the copper oils that are being developed now.
“A third area where we will continue to see growth is in large, fully automated plants,” he continued.
“As mentioned, the whole industry is consolidating and our major customers have very significant volumes to treat and will invest in automated, high volume, low cost treatment facilities and that will continue to be an important area of growth for WTM in the future.”
