\u201cTo answer that you only have to look at what we\u2019ve achieved, he says. \u201cPeople ask how we are going to do it since it means doubling our size. But look at where we are, we have built up a business from scratch and already gone from \u20ac12m to \u20ac525m in ten years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Certainly it\u2019s been a story of snakes and ladders, with some dramatic slides and some equally dramatic turnarounds. To start with, Mr Neteland explains: \u201cTTS went public in 1995 as a shipyard equipment company, but by 1996 they were losing money with the shipyards, so I came in with restructuring in mind. So we closed that side of the business and repositioned the company as manufacturing onboard lifting gear.\u201d<\/p>\n
He adds: \u201cI\u2019d had a diverse experience, not maritime by any means, but the thing they all had in common was that they needed help.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we have done in TTS is build up a global structure from scratch, but at least now there\u2019s something to build out from. It\u2019s actually a significantly easier job to get to that \u20ac1bn mark than the job we faced in 1999.\u201d<\/p>\n
Given the new focus, the company shot up in profile and value, concentrating on growing the business by looking at both where the lifting equipment could find new markets and by acquisitions. \u201cIt\u2019s about half and half\u201d, says Mr Neteland. \u201cOne side is organic growth, the other side gives you different capabilities, but more importantly, the profit margin goes up significantly if you are a large, international player.\u201d<\/p>\n
But it was an acquisition that nearly undermined the whole project. \u201cNot the acquisition itself, but the way one of them was financed.\u201d<\/p>\n
He explains: \u201cWe were hit hard by the crisis but two things made it difficult. One was the cancelled orders coming to \u20ac250m. The first six months of 2009 was critical, but we sorted it out. The other, bigger problem was an acquisition that had been financed on the bond market, something that investors wanted to do at the time. When the market stopped dead, we didn\u2019t have anything to back up with. Unlike others, we hadn\u2019t got an order book in place and the market was zero for around 18 months.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s simply not something that I would do again, finance an acquisition like this. You need to have plenty in the bank.\u201d The acquisition was justified, he adds, as last year the company sold it, making almost half a billion NOK on the deal.<\/p>\n
He says he has learned other things too, including \u201cfinding local partnerships\u201d. \u201cWe went into Japan in 2000 but got badly burnt by the experience. It wasn\u2019t well enough thought through before we started. I think I found out then that the best way to succeed in foreign markets, especially in China, is to become local. By which I mean only Chinese people in a Chinese factory, with minimal non-Chinese input. This means you make the most of local supply networks.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What makes Johannes D. Neteland believe he can turn Norwegian lifting equipment manufacturer TTS \u201cinto a billion Euro company in the next three years\u201d?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":2404,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-2403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-key-deals"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2403"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2405,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2403\/revisions\/2405"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2403"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=2403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}