Johan Bogaerts succeeds Aimé de Lannoy in the family-owned company.

14. December 2005 - EPPSTEIN. Arichemie GmbH, specialists in pigment preparation, has appointed Johan Bogaerts (38) as their new managing director effective 1 November 2005. He will also be taking over the founder Aimé de Lannoy’s (93) shares in the business.

Johan Bogaerts has been part of the successful development of the company since 1993. On 1 June 2003, he became a member of the management and was also named authorized signatory. He now becomes the successor to Aimé de Lannoy.

The official ceremony took place at Arichemie’s production facility in the presence of all employees. During the ceremony, Aimé de Lannoy said that he wanted to see his life’s work continued and the jobs of the company’s 40 employees maintained, which is why he was entrusting the business to his grandson.

Johan Bogaerts has already set goals for the future. The company’s site will remain in Germany, and in spite of the difficult conditions confronting SMBs because of REACH and increasing competition from Asia, production and development will stay at their present location. For the present nothing will change in this respect. Furthermore, the “Four Pillar” product strategy will be accelerated and augmented in the core business by a greater emphasis on specialties.

The four pillars stand for Arichemie’s individual product series. The first pillar consists of products for aqueous systems. These include the following assortments: Vocaflex, Vocateint, Vocafil. Multipurpose preparations of the Aritint series - the second pillar - are used for aqueous and solvent-based tinting and painting systems. The third pillar, which includes the Heliocolor and Vocaplast products, covers special areas in the plastic and lacquer industries. The fourth pillar is the Vulcogran assortment which covers pigments for rubber systems.

The distribution network will continue to be used in the existing structure and expanded over the next few years. Sixteen international agencies will ensure the support of the company. There are also plans to further expand the business into western and eastern European countries, which will create new sales opportunities for existing and new preparation assortments.