Wirtgen Group
Wirtgen Group is an internationally operating German company in the construction industry. The company's core business is the development and production of machinery for road construction and maintenance.
Wirtgen Group employs around 9,000 people around the world and its annual turnover is around €3 billion. It also has local manufacturing plants in Brazil, China, and India, 55 distribution and service offices and over 150 authorized dealers around the globe.
History
In November 1961 Reinhard Wirtgen founded a small contracting business in Windhagen, Germany, starting with small haulage jobs and later specializing in road construction machinery with concrete breakers. Eventually Wirtgen expanded his fleet to 100 milling machines and 150 workers operating all over Germany. Reinhard Wirtgen progressed the product portfolio from hot milling to cold milling machines by the end of the 70s, which significantly increased the economic efficiency of the milling process. The international development of the company began when Reinhard Wirtgen set up the first subsidiaries outside Germany.Reinhard Wirtgen systematically expanded his product portfolio at the production plant to four product divisions. In 1981, Wirtgen built the first surface miners for opencast mining and routing operations in hard rock. From 1987 onwards, Wirtgen introduced cold recycling as an economical method of road rehabilitation. Two years later, he incorporated the slipform paver division into his company to offer solutions for the construction of concrete roads and poured-in-place concrete profiles.
Jürgen and Stefan Wirtgen took over the management of the company in 1997. The expansion of the corporate group began with the integration of the road paver manufacturer Vögele. Hamm, a roller manufacturer, was integrated into Wirtgen Group in 1999. High investments in the three production plants resulted in the expansion of production capacities and efficiency, as well as a strong presence for the corporate group on a global scale.
In 2006 Wirtgen Group consolidated into two business lines: "Road Technologies" and "Mineral Technologies". The second line was established with the incorporation of Kleemann, a German manufacturer of mobile and stationary processing plants.
In 2014, the manufacturer of asphalt mixing plants Benninghoven was also integrated into the company.
In 2017, Wirtgen Group entered into a definitive agreement with John Deere to be purchased for $5.2 Billion.