Boryszew shakes up top management to boost growth

Photo by Boryszew Boryszew's moulding plant in Germany

Boryszew’s long serving chief executive Piotr Szeliga has been replaced as part of a management shakeup designed to boost the pace of development and oversee international growth plans at the Polish group.

Szeliga’s replacement, Jaroslaw Michniuk has extensive international management experience in the plastics industry, including 20 years at BASF. He has also held senior posts at the Polish polyurethanes and chemicals group Selena.

Szeliga, who oversaw the integration of the non-ferrous metals business Impexmetal and took executive charge of the whole group in 2012, is still on the Boryszew board, but was moved out to manage Boryszew’s current metals division.

The shakeup, which saw Michniuk take executive charge at the start of this month, includes the arrival of Alexander Bary? to handle Boryszew’s finances. He comes with wide management experience at leading Polish oil refiner PKN Orlen, including its polymer production offshoots, and at the Polish chemicals producer Ciech Group.

Management changes now are dictated primarily by the “dynamic growth of production and business abroad” of Boryszew group, Poland’s leading automotive supplier, according to Janusz Siemieniec, chairman of the group’s supervisory board.

“In just a few years, we have become an international company with revenues in excess of $1bn (€911m),” the chairman commented in a statement.

“Our goal is to maintain the current pace of development. It is therefore necessary to strengthen the management structures of the company. Jaroslaw Michniuk ... has extensive experience in managing international corporate structures, so (he) fits perfectly in our growth plans,” said Siemieniec.

In the first half of 2016, Warsaw-based Boryszew reported a slump in sales revenue at €661m against €710m for the same period in 2015. This mainly reflected a fall in metals prices on the London Metals Exchange, according to the firm.

However, Boyszew saw a sharp rise of nearly €10m in its net profit which stood at €22.2m year on year while the operating profit rose €20m to €36m. These results reflect the importance of its plastics and rubber automotive components business to the group, it said.

The automotive segment contributed nearly €12m to the first half operating profit after seeing a loss of almost €1m a year ago for the same period. This was attributed to the success of major restructuring in the segment by Boryszew.

A little over half the division’s profit was contributed by the parts moulder Boryszew Automotive Plastics (BAP) which benefited from lower raw material prices, higher product prices thanks to an agreement with major customer Volkswagen and because the BAP workforce was down by 100 than last year.

Another offshoot, the auto pipes maker Maflow also performed well, not only at its Polish operations, but also with higher sales abroad from its Brazilian and Italian plants, reported the then group CEO Piotr Szeliga.

But he warned that automotive business result in the second half of 2016 would be less favourable, affected by the costs of outsourcing production following the 2015 fire that destroyed the BAP plant at Prenzlau, Germany and by seasonally weaker autumn trading months.