Johan Berlin, managing director and owner of InvestKonsult, discusses reuniting with the industry at INDEXTM20 and makes predictions for the future of the nonwoven machinery market post-Covid-19. By Jessica Owen.
Jessica Owen (JO): Are you excited to finally exhibit at INDEXTM20 after it was postponed? What are you most looking forward to?
Johan Berlin (JB): Absolutely. It’s been too long. The last big show we did was IDEA in March 2019 and a few of the EDANA gatherings in the fall of 2019, so it’s long overdue, that’s for sure.
What we are most looking forward to is to meet again in person with old friends, customers and colleagues, and this time we expect also quite a lot of new faces, as there are several new entrants in the nonwovens (and related) industries, not least in terms of meltblown producers and facemask converters.
JO: What is the focus of InvestKonsult’s exhibit at the event? Have you got any recent developments to share?
JB: Our focus is the same – to be a solution provider for anyone who is active in the nonwovens or the absorbent hygiene segments. Whether we can serve their needs through machinery or consulting does not really matter to us. Each new mission is unique for us and that is what keeps our work interesting all the time.
JO: How has the company coped with Covid-19? I imagine you may have received many requests for consulting and guidance – how have you been able to help?
JB: Wow – long story. We were worried back in March to May last year, as so much of our business is based upon travelling and meeting with our customers. Especially for the second-hand business where normally people would never buy something without a physical inspection. Just consider if you’d buy a used car for yourself – you’d want to see it – even if the price was only €3,000, right? Well, imagine that and it’s a machine at €30,000 or a complete line at €300,000. So, this was really a factor for us; we thought we would lose a lot on our turnover.
However, this did not happen. And we can only speculate about the reasons, but we would like to think we are one of the few players in the world that have solidly built our reputation and our relationships, both with the companies that potentially sell or divest equipment as well as with the companies that normally purchase/acquire second-hand equipment. If you have a company involved in the nonwovens business, chances are extremely high that you will know or at least have heard of Investkonsult Sweden. So we think that what happened was that those companies that needed to purchase something, turned to someone they knew had a long run in the business with a good reputation, rather than searching for equipment randomly on the internet. We had several cases where we sold both single machines as well as complete lines, just based on reputation and inspections that we had previously made.
When it comes to consulting – yes, there was a lot of that. Most of it was, of course, free and not something we could charge for. During one period (March-June 2020) I think we had between five and 10 calls per day from private persons, companies and/or governmental bodies. They would ask questions about facemasks and meltblown and if it was possible to buy, if it was possible to install a line, if there were any old lines available and so on. Unfortunately, there was quite a lot of ‘luck-seekers’ and ‘gold-diggers’ out there that had their eyes only on governmental/regional funding and they quickly wanted to benefit from those funds. Most of those requests and enquiries never materialised, but we know of several companies that purchased both meltblown lines and facemask machines that are already bankrupt.
Our largest achievement during 2020 was to assist a Scandinavian start-up, a meltblown producer with zero experience. We acted as consultants both for the company, its banks and financers and we also provided the labour and people to assist the team with the full assembly of the meltblown line. It was indeed a challenging project.
JO: Since INDEX in 2017, what trends and challenges have you noticed within the nonwovens industry?
JB: Nothing apart from what all other observers have noted, I guess. More focus on circularity and sustainability for sure, with new fibres and new directives within the European Union (EU). We have seen quite a lot of growing interest from the traditional forestry and paper producers to move into the nonwovens realm as well – which was inevitable. Apart from that, we’ll obviously see an oversupply of certain nonwovens in the coming years and this will lead to some line shutdowns, maybe some consolidation and maybe even a few bankruptcies, but the main thing is still the increased focus on circularity.
JO: Finally, what are your predictions for how the nonwovens industry will move forward post Covdi-19?
JB: Good question – we believe there will still be a market for second-hand machinery, of course, but personally I believe it may decrease, due to a couple different factors. For example, the rules and regulations of production are becoming more stringent, which also means that purchasing a second-hand machine or line may not be an alternative due to higher energy consumption or too high emissions for example. Elsewhere, in the absorbent hygiene area, there’s a lot of focus on minimising the waste of raw material. Previously, the main difference between an old baby diaper line and a new baby diaper line has been the output, capacity and speed and it was always possible to sell the old lines because not everyone needed a machine that could make 800 pieces/min. Now, however, the focus is more on not wasting raw material and many of the old lines are not built like that, so even there it will be difficult to sell older lines.
As for the market of brand new machinery (OEM), we think it will slow down a bit. There were a lot of investments made both in meltblown, spunmelt and spunlace during the past 18 months. Obviously, this will not keep up and a period of consolidation and restructuring may come.
