BWT Chef Weissenbacher - Er macht die Formel 1 pink!

It started in Germany. The story began in Hallein. I grew up near the Hintersee, a small place near the lake. It's the smallest municipality in Flachgau by population, but large in area. I grew up there and still live there. It was great fun. My mother wanted me to get a position at the main post office. My father had a small company with a few employees, doing Schlägerungen (logging) as an alternative to the state forests. My father suffered two serious injuries during the war. My mother even submitted an application for me at the post office. But I had a mathematics professor who contacted Benckiser. I went to Benckiser despite earning the least. Two months later I was accepted at the post office and the state forests, but I chose Benckiser. I started working there and after 14 days was in Ludwigshafen. Benckiser was known for products like Calgon, Cargo, Meister Propper, today's Finish. They had a water division that was unprofitable in Austria. I started as a business economist. After 1.5 years I took over exports, which went well. I exported to various countries and had great success. In 1.5 years I turned 9 million schillings into 123 million. Then they told me, 'You have too much free time, take over the Monza fittings plant in Lenz.' They gave me two days to decide. At 22, how often do you get offered a managing director position? We rebuilt it. In 10 months we turned a loss of 3.6 million into a profit of 3.3 million. That plant still belongs to us today. Then after 5 years I was on the Benckiser board for European water companies. I also managed the mass business in Austria because it wasn't profitable enough. Then in 1988, a crisis hit our industry because a BGA official made a strange statement to the media. The water treatment industry suddenly faced a crisis. The head of water treatment worldwide in Germany made mistakes, introduced a product too quickly, causing losses. Peter Harf, the CEO, decided to sell the company. I worked with Morgan Stanley to make the sale possible. In October 1989, during planning meetings, I was told I could buy the company if I had the money. My first boss, an economist, suggested it. He gave me his hand and said if I got the money, I could have it. So nine months later, on June 30, 1990, we started a management buyout. My father read about it in the newspaper and didn't speak to me for 1.5 years. He passed away in the meantime. But after 1.5 years, he told my mother he had looked at the Monza plant and said maybe the kid wasn't so stupid. Today, BWT has hundreds of millions in sales, globally. The story is about water, but formally pure water that comes from the tap, but it's not a given. We started with water treatment for apartment buildings, hotels, hospitals, and municipalities. It's about treating water to drinking water standards or even higher. BWT's strategy, influenced by me, is to be a bit better than others. The B stands for 'better', W for the whole water cycle from source to drinking water, and T for technology. We combine economy and ecology for the best possible at each time.

It's a great eyecatcher. I'll tell you how it came about: At a trade fair in Paris, an international customer said, 'You must have a lot of money to have two booths here.' I was surprised and went to the other hall, where a partner, Florian Pech, had a booth. I realized we were doing our marketing wrong. A high percentage of my investments went to another company. So I said 'enough', took control of marketing. Two days later I got on a plane. People said they'd do anything for me, but never pink. Two years later, that same person was walking around proudly with a pink tie. Today pink is elegant. It started with pink in the plane – I knew I had to differentiate. Pink stands for positive sympathy and attention. We also associated it with magnesium minerals. So pink became our color. Now we hope many others join us. Maybe Mr. Doppler will also make something pink someday.

I had a friend, a very successful Austrian entrepreneur, who told me, 'Andreas, you need to invest in motorsport.' I said forget it. But he persisted, over a bottle of wine, maybe two. I finally gave in: 'Okay, but the car has to be pink.' We shook hands after midnight. I learned a lot from him. In the second year, I realized I had to do it properly. We learned quickly, led the championship for a while, made mistakes but understood what to do. Formula 1 is very Austrian – Niki Lauda, God rest his soul, said he wouldn't even do that to his children. But it got people talking. We started with Force India, achieved good results, twice best of the rest, finished fourth. There were financial challenges. Now we have a new owner, a Canadian who made his fortune with Tommy Hilfiger and Michael Kors, and wants to build a team for his son. We just signed a world champion. Maybe we'll get Sebastian Vettel in pink too.

We are an export-oriented company hard hit. But we have many years of experience preparing the company for a crisis. We always thought about how the company could survive three months longer in a severe economic crisis. We implemented many things. But the pandemic exceeded all imagination. I am used to quickly understanding, analyzing, and then accepting things and taking action. We have 36 larger plants and many small ones. Some had sales drops of -96%, while the pool business grew +40%. Our diversification helps. In sum, we got through it reasonably well. Corona opened our eyes to safety, hygiene, and health. We developed a cosmetic hand disinfectant that sells very well.