Mayer & Cie., a family firm managed by the owner family’s fourth generation, anticipates total sales of around EUR 93 million in 2015 – an increase of more than ten per cent on the previous year.

Historic records broken

“2015 was a very eventful year,” says Benjamin Mayer, Managing Director of Mayer & Cie. The 33-year-old entrepreneur is referring for one to the impressive business figures. “Over the past year we have manufactured and sold over 1,300 machines, steadily increasing our sales in recent years. In early summer we also shipped the 70,000th knitting machine from our production facility in Albstadt – an impressive testimony to our successful corporate history.”

In terms of sales revenue, which this year will total around EUR 93 million for the entire Mayer Group, the circular knitting machine manufacturer from Germany’s Swabian Alb region is by far the largest provider in the market. The long-established company is a technology leader too. That was evident once more at this year’s ITMA, where Mayer & Cie. presented inter alia its new and extraordinarily highly regarded market-ready spinitsystems® spin and knit technology.

For another the past year has marked the company’s transition to the owner family’s fourth generation. Since the death of longstanding managing and senior director Rainer Mayer, his son and his nephew, Benjamin Mayer and Marcus Mayer, have taken over as joint managing directors of the company assisted by Benjamin Mayer’s brother Sebastian Mayer. This well-planned change of generation has left the over a century old knitting machine manufacturer with an unusually young management team that has set itself the target of combining a modern corporate structure and culture with the Swabian SMB’s tried and tested strengths. Working for 40 years at Mayer & Cie. is anything but unusual, for example, and the same goes for investment in more sustainable production or in innovative start-ups.

ITMA in Milan sounds a positive note for 2016

“We are extremely satisfied with this year’s ITMA,” Benjamin Mayer says. “Above all, our new spin and knit technology spinitsystems® and the first machine to use it, the Spinit 3.0 E, met with an overwhelming response. The other four machines we exhibited at ITMA evidently also caught the spirit of the age exactly.”

The key data of Mayer & Cie.’s ITMA presentation underscores the Managing Director’s impression. Overall sales targets were well fulfilled even though the order books were amply filled prior to the trade fair and well-known phenomenon of a lull in orders ahead of the fair did not fully materialise. For the Spinit 3.0 E, which had its sales launch at ITMA, Mayer & Cie. booked three pilot series orders in Milan. Series production is scheduled to start in 2017.