Swiss composites company Gurit (Wattwil; www.gurit.com) is dividing its largest business unit, Composite Materials, into two new segments – Wind Materials and Marine & Industrial Materials. The target markets and business activities of these areas are too different, according to the statement from Wattwil.

Lance Hill, who is currently regional sales director for the Americas, will become general manager of Marine & Industrial Materials on 1 May 2020. The company’s search for a general manager for Wind Materials is in progress. It will be temporarily managed by Stefan Gautschi, the previous managing director of Composite Materials. Gautschi is leaving Gurit at the end of June, and CEO Rudolf Hadorn will become the new interim head for Wind Materials until the new general manager is in place.

Gurit also announced that Hadorn has decided to step down as CEO at the end of March 2021 after 14 years leading the company. The search for his successor is in progress. The board of directors is also planning for its 2021 annual general meeting that Hadorn will be proposed for election to the board of directors, replacing Urs Kaufmann. Furthermore, Hadorn would be up for chairman of the board at the 2022 AGM and would then succeed Peter Leupp.

According to unaudited results for the first quarter of 2020, Gurit generated sales of CHF 142.7m (EUR 131.6m) in Q1. The 4.6% decline compared to the previous year’s figure was a result of the divestment of its automotive business (see Plasteurope.com of 24.02.2020) and adverse currency effects. Its Asian operations were significantly impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. All business areas, especially tooling, suffered from travel and supply-chain restrictions. Meanwhile, the situation in Asia is getting back to normal.

Composite Materials saw net sales rise 9.1% to CHF 66.2m. Asian operations had to throttle production, but remained running most of the time in Q1 2020. Revenues at the Kitting division increased 40% to CHF 48.1m, while Aerospace recorded a 6.8% decline to CHF 13.4m in a difficult market environment. Tooling suffered from coronavirus-related delays in customer projects and logistics problems, with sales here dropping 46% to CHF 36.1m. As the situation in China normalises, Gurit expects tooling to catch up.

Some of Gurit’s locations outside of Asia were temporarily shut down but able to resume operations soon after. However, these sites are operating at low capacity utilisation rates. Gurit is aiming for full-year net sales of around CHF 600m and an operating profit margin of 8.5-11%, provided the Covid-19 pandemic will not affect its business for more than one full month.