Vögele invests over 70 Million Euros in the Rhine-Neckar Conurbation

New location is selected.

The location issue facing VÖGELE has now been decided on. After over 15 months of intensive preliminary work, the recent meeting of the supervisory board made the final decision in favour of the Rhine-Neckar conurbation. The new plant will be constructed on a 40-ha site in Ludwigshafen Rheingönheim, just a few kilometres away from the present location.

VÖGELE, the worldwide market leader and manufacturer of road pavers, has witnessed a very positive development in recent years. In 2007 alone, the sales volume was increased by over 40%. Thanks to this very pleasing growth, over 300 new jobs were created in 2006 and 2007. For 2008 an increase in the number of people employed is planned by another 100, bringing the total workforce to some 1,100 employees.

Considerable investments have been made in the Mannheim location to permit this strong company growth. Since 2005, over 12 million euros have flowed into the construction of a new assembly hall and the purchase of cutting-edge plant and machinery.

Yet despite these investments, the current location can no longer keep up with the company's future plans for growth. Due to the tight space conditions in Neckarauer Strasse, various alternative locations in the Rhine-Neckar conurbation were examined over the last 15 months and evaluated on the basis of a detailed catalogue of requirements. Top priority was given to the proximity to the former site. Each employee is to be permitted to transfer with the company to its new location. The company has assumed a binding undertaking to ensure that the current workforce will suffer no disadvantage from the transfer of the headquarters from Mannheim to Ludwigshafen due to differences in the collective wage agreements.

In its search for a site, the company first focused on the Mannheim district. Research extending over several months yielded only one site of limited suitability. But due to the continued growth in 2007, this site could now no longer sufficiently meet the company's space requirements. For this reason, VÖGELE extended its search to include the entire Rhine-Neckar conurbation. A shortlist was made comprising three potential locations in Mannheim, Schifferstadt and Ludwigshafen. All the location-related factors having now been carefully considered, the supervisory board meeting at VÖGELE AG was able select Ludwigshafen Rheingönheim as the site for the construction of its new plant.

The 70 million euro investment required for the construction of the works marks the WIRTGEN Group's clear commitment to maintaining Germany as a company location, to strengthening the Rhine-Neckar conurbation and to providing job security for the employees of VÖGELE.

The WIRTGEN Group, an expanding international corporate group in the road construction machinery sector, comprises the four renowned brands WIRTGEN, VÖGELE, HAMM and KLEEMANN, with their headquarters in Germany plus local production plants in the US, Brazil and China

With their modern production facilities, the manufacturing companies in the WIRTGEN Group are the birthplace of strong brands of world renown in the construction of new roads, the rehabilitation of existing roads and mineral processing.

What's more, some 55 of the group's own sales companies service markets around the world in line with country-specific factors. This permits us to do justice to the respective requirements of our customers in terms of market proximity and efficiency.