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In the beginning of 2004, it was announced that Swedish provider of cash handling solutions, SCAN COIN, has acquired the well-known German PERCONTA range of money counting and sorting systems. At the same time plans were unveiled to set up a new R&D centre in Berlin to further develop the technological lead that the takeover provides.
The SCAN COIN move provides customers worldwide with a strong partner by combining the cutting-edge PERCONTA technologies with the Swedish company’s existing range. The acquisition covers the product rights, all intellectual property and the stock of former F. Zimmerman GmbH & Co. KG.
"PERCONTA’s products have a very high reputation, both in Germany and internationally. Combining the solutions from the two companies creates a unique and powerful force in the cash handling market," says SCAN COIN’s Group Managing Director Rickard Ovin.
The acquisition of the PERCONTA brand also puts SCAN COIN in a strong position to increase the level of its activities outside Europe, especially in the US and Asia where it already has sales companies. Especially attractive in these two regions are the retail, casino and vending sectors, where the cash turnover is high.
A new centre of excellence in Berlin, SCAN COIN PERCONTA Development GmbH, opened on 1 March and is mainly staffed by former PERCONTA engineers working together with specialists from the Swedish and British SCAN COIN development departments.
"We have now created a good industrial platform for further developing and complementing the PERCONTA technologies," says Thomas G. F. Zimmerman who has joined the executive management of SCAN COIN and will be based at the Berlin centre.
While some mergers and takeovers in this sector have been characterised by problems, SCAN COIN has been very successful in developing and expanding the companies it has acquired in Britain, the Netherlands and France over the past few years. "This in large part due to the fact that they operate proactively with a high degree of independence and the close support of our R&D and manufacturing companies. This enables them to deliver the most flexible solutions to raise our customers’ profitability by increasing the efficiency of their cash processing," says Rickard Ovin.
Over 75% of the company’s total staff of 450 work in the company’s subsidiaries in 12 European countries, the US and Hong Kong. The present annual turnover is over € 80 million.
SCAN COIN is now the leading provider in Europe of versatile cash handling solutions. Users range from banks and post offices to supermarkets, cash-in-transit companies and casinos.
In an age of credit and cash cards the amount of cash in circulation is still increasing by between two and ten per cent per annum in industrialised countries. |