The large Slovenian company is investing heavily in education and innovation in the automotive industry.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 30th of March 2018, the Impol Group from Slovenska Bistrica, a small town with a mere 6,000-7,000 inhabitants located south of Maribor in eastern Slovenia, is one of the largest brands in Slovenia, and their latest ambition is to become a part of Šibenik’s economic zone.
The Slovenes have recently become the owners of TLM, the former Croatian aluminum giant. The company began to stagnate and eventually failed under its former administration and former system but relief came back in 2016, when a new story began with Impol TLM, who first rented the Šibenik factory, and at the end of 2017, it purchased the company’s assets for 75 million kuna.
According to the local portal Šibenski.hr, in 2018, the now Slovenian owned Impol company plans a massive turnover of millions of euro, and Impol TLM will primarily focus its future on the automotive industry and prove that Šibenik is flexible enough to not only be a Dalmatian tourist destination, but also an economically important and powerful city.
The company invests heavily in both education and innovation, as well as organising symposiums.
Aware that without substantial media support they could easily come unstuck with suspicions over their intentions in Šibenik, where they were welcomed with approval, but also met with some understandable reservations given the currently strained political relations between Slovenia and Croatia, Impol’s leading people invited journalists to Slovenska Bistrica in neighbouring Slovenia, in order to show them with what and how they work at the parent company, as well as present their development strategy and for Impol TLM. The presentation was led by Andrej Kolmanič, Chief Executive Officer of Impol, and Marijan Lažeta, Impol’s director.
Today, Impol has 2,300 employees, of which 1,250 are based in Slovenia, 600 are in Serbia (Seval) and 400 are in Šibenik. They invest 40 million euro per year on average, accounting for an entire quarter of Slovenia’s GDP, Impol is also the largest exporter in the country by far, and their products are mainly sold to Germany, Italy, Austria, Switzerland and are also present on the Russian market. Their main product on the European market are the materials used to make the undercarriage and gearboxes in the automotive industry, relating primarily to high end vehicles, from Mercedes to the likes of Ferrari and Lamborghini.
TLM did not simply take over the now formerly Croatian owned company, as they emphasised, but purchased the ailing company in the throes of bankruptcy and therefore did not take on the obligations the factory once had under its former management. They invested around 100 million euro in just two years, and the plans are to invest a further 80 million into the necessary equipment.
To add to their proverbial shine, Impol’s philosophy is to recycle as much waste as possible in the process of production, giving the environment, as well as the economy, a much needed helping hand.
