Subsidiary in Egypt celebrates its anniversary. 25 years Marbach Egypt.

The Egyptian subsidiary Marbach celebrates its 25th anniversary. The Marbach Group was founded in 1923 as a 3-man business. To begin with it supplied mainly the domestic advertising and packaging industry. Marbach then began a process of internationalization in 1984. In 1995 Marbach started a joint venture in Egypt. 

How did the step towards internationalization begin? Peter Marbach, Managing Director of the Marbach Group: "The year 1972 was revolutionary for us. In that year, the first CO2 laser cutting system in Europe for cutting-die production was installed at our Heilbronn plant. This allowed us to achieve an until then unique quality and efficiency in tool production. Increasingly inquiries came from abroad, so that we made the decision to internationalize. First joint ventures and cooperations were followed by new production facilities in various countries."

At the beginning of the 90s the time had come; by chance, Markus Stirnimann, then Subsidiary Manager of the Swiss Marbach Branch Office, met Mohamed Shaheen, now Managing Director of Marbach Egypt, at a private sports event. They casually got to talking about work. Shaheen was very interested in Marbach products and initially offered to be a representative importing cutting-dies into Egypt. As the Marbach tools became more and more popular in Egypt, the question arose whether to invest in a local production site. After the necessary capital had been raised and all formalities completed, the Marbach Joint Venture in Egypt was able to begin operations in June 1995 and started supplying customers in North Africa with cutting tools made by Marbach. A location was quickly selected: in the then new industrial area Second Industrial Zone, outside Alexandria, in a desert area. In 2004 the company moved to a second location in the free-trade zone of Alexandria. 

Mohamed Shaheen, Managing Director of Marbach Egypt, has been involved from the very beginning: "We started back then with a single 400 watt laser machine and a total of 5 employees. At the beginning our customers were almost all from Egypt. In the course of time word got around about the exceptional quality of our tools. We currently supply tools to all North African countries."

Today – 25 years later – 75 employees work for Marbach Egypt. The production area has been increased considerably. Shaheen continues: "Our machine equipment is also impressive: we have a very modern machine park. This includes several laser machines with a total output of more than 5,000 watts, various milling machines, rule processing machines as well as water-jet cutting systems."

Marbach Egypt is one of the Marbach Group's 20 subsidiaries and supplies more than 1,500 customers with cutting tools in Marbach quality.