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Inside Filtration – The Official FAUDI Newsletter
Far left: Horst Watz, “Local Hero – Mutmacher der Nation 2008”
Courage and gut feeling – a good combination
Using instinct and entrepreneurial
thinking to become “Local Hero –
Mutmacher der Nation”
Germany needs role models - people with optimism and
ideas that inspire. For this reason a top-class jury with
Lower Saxony‘s Premier, Christian Wulff, as patron awards
an annual prize to „Local Heroes - Mutmacher der Nation“.
The prize recognises entrepreneurs from small and mediumsized
companies who have shown exceptional and exemplary
entrepreneurial spirit and determination.
In 2008 Horst Watz, Managing Director of both WATZ
Hydraulik and FAUDI GmbH received the prize for an
outstanding entrepreneurial decision. In May 2006, Horst
Watz bought the insolvent FAUDI GmbH in Stadtallendorf.
The company, numbering 80 employees, was founded in 1938
and is one of Germany‘s traditional companies, operating in
the field of filtration technology. However, the once number
one address in the field of coolants and process engineering
got into great difficulties as a result of mismanagement and
the changing economic situation. Following the instigation
of insolvency proceedings, the company faced being sold
off and broken up. Competitors were already expressing
interest in the company‘s patent rights. Horst Watz decided
to purchase the company just 24 hours before the bidding
deadline expired. Through this decision – as he himself calls
it, a gut decision – he saved 80 jobs and a medium-sized
company with a long tradition. The purchase price of 1 million
euros was financed by his own company, WATZ Hydraulik
GmbH, with start-up financing of a further 3.5 million euros
being secured by private guarantees.
Horst Watz has not regretted his courage and his (gut)
decision. On the contrary: „At the end of the day it was a
question of a traditional German company and its people,“
relates the businessman. He continues, „Some people say
that such a decision requires courage. That may be. But I
just knew what the potential of the company and above
all of its people was.“ Insolvency is no longer an issue for
FAUDI. Turnover in 2007 amounted to eleven million euros
and increased significantly in 2008 to 14.5 million euros. The
number of employees has now grown to 85, including 12
vocational trainees who will all complete their training with
flying colours.