LM Wind Power Blades Poland's plant and LM Wind Power Service & Logistics hires nearly 600 employees in Goleniów Industrial Park. The plant was opened in 2009 and is one of the twelve production plants and one of the three servicing facilities of LM Wind Power Holding A/S in the world.

 

At the beginning of October LM Wind Holding announced that Doughty Hanson, a European private equity fund, had agreed to sell its shares in LM Wind Power Holding to General Electric (GE) totalling EUR 1.5 bn. In a press release GM Group Holding said that the value of the takeover is estimated at 8.3 times of EBITDA forecasted for 2016. The transaction is scheduled to take place in the first half of 2017.

 

Marc de Jong, CEO of LM Wind Power, said that having a global leader as the owner of the company would ensure stability, visibility and strength necessary to carry out ambitious plans of growth. Mr. de Jong also said that with the new owner the company would be able to make full use of its advanced technology and designs, increase its production capacity, enhance reliability and expand its global reach.

 

LM Wind Power was established in 1940 as a furniture manufacturer. Over time it turned into a leading manufacturer of rotor blades for the wind industry with branches in thirteen countries on four continents. Since 1978 LM Wind Power has manufactured over 185 thousand wind turbine blades which translates into 77 GW of installed wind energy. The company's technical potential is reflected by the longest, 88.4 meter, wind turbine blade manufactured this year.

 

GE started its operations in Poland in 1992 with one employee. Since then the company has invested USD 500 million and now hires 10 thousand people in eight large facilities: three GE Power Controls plants (in Kłodzko, Łódź and Bielsko-Biała), two GE Aviation plants (in Dzierżoniów and Bielsko-Biała), Engineering Design Centre in Warsaw which now hires nearly 2 thousand engineers and GE Healthcare IT Centre of Excellence in Krakow. GE operates in a wide range of industries such as financial services, healthcare, production of electricity and aviation.

 

In Western Pomerania there are five GE companies. These are: Convergys International (Szczecin) − one of the biggest BPO companies in the world specialising in customer relationship management; Crown Packaging Polska (Goleniów) − member of Crown Holdings, a global supplier of packaging; Valassis (Białogard) − a marketing services giant; Prologis − owner of the Prologis Park Szczecin distribution hub in the Goleniów Industrial Park; Panattoni − owner of a warehouse centre in Szczecin-Załom, an investor in Kołbaskowo where it will erect a warehouse facility for the American e-commerce giant, Amazon.

 

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