2010 is the year Lagerstedt & Krantz celebrate their 100 year anniversary. Looking back on an eventful period, we witness the company’s growth from a two man company to a company group with increased international presence. A long-term approach and fresh ideas have been the critical keys to our success. Thanks to them, we continue to open new doors.
The LK Group today consists of 16 companies, operating internationally within Heating and Plumbing systems and the shipping industry. The group has over 250 employees, six business areas and products which are increasingly sold in Europe, Middle East, Asia and USA.
Starting shot for the LK Group
The group’s development has been taken step by step and they have successfully applied the brakes and accelerated at the right opportunities. The starting shot took off just after the last turn of the century, at Jakobsgatan in the currently demolished Klarakvarteren district of Stockholm. It was here that Nils Ludvig Lagerstedt and Anton Leonard Krantz established the iron manufacturing company and agent Lagerstedt & Krantz on 6 July 1910. Swedish hardware shops and country shops were in need of the company’s products, such as poultry foot rings, drawing pins, canning glass, slicers, lanterns, mosquito nets, hydraulic accumulators and many other things, and sales quickly got under way.
In the 1930’s, Lars Schuberth and Albrecht Behm took over the business and refined the product range to focus on Water and Drainage pipes and Heating and Plumbing products. Sales included drainage systems, taps, sanitary ware and baths from leading manufacturers in Europe and Lagerstedt & Krantz soon became a well known player in the Swedish Heating and Plumbing market.
In 1970 we hit the nail on the head when we took over as general agent for Conex compression fittings, a product that saved installation time for the pipe fitters and created opportunities for profitability and growth. Thanks to sales success, Lagerstedt & Krantz were able to build up a nationwide sales organisation aimed at installers of Heating and Plumbing and wholesalers.
Business area Technical Fittings
Increased profitability also led to a broadening of the product range in the 1980’s to include a valve range for water heaters and boilers – the embryo of our business area Technical Fittings was born. The product rights were acquired for the technical fitting range and, in 1985, were included in the newly formed company, LK Armatur AB in Helsingborg, Sweden. Business activity was increasingly aimed at the development and production within the company of technically advanced products and services. Through engaged and skilful employees, LK Armatur soon became the market leading manufacturer in the Nordic region for these products. Today, LK Acaso is also included in this business area, with a range consisting of shunts and control equipment for primarily environmentally friendly heating sources such as heat pumps, solar panels and bio fuel boilers.
Business area Heating and Plumbing
An important developmental phase for the group took place in the 1990’s. After several years as an agent for a German floor heating system, we launched our own under floor heating system adapted to suit Scandinavian conditions. Today LK Floor Heating is one of the leading products in Sweden. Aside from floor heating, our operations within the business area Heating and Plumbing also include systems for radiator and ground heating as well as potable water. The company running this business area is currently called LK Systems and is present in Sweden, Finland, Norway and England.
Business area PE-X pipes
As a consequence of the business area Heating and Plumbing’s great need for pipes as well as fortunate conditions, the business area PE-X pipe (LK Pex AB) was established in 1998 at Ulricehamn, Sweden. Here, pipe quality was developed with the subsidiary company’s needs in mind but also for other clients and usage areas within Heating and Plumbing and Water and Drainage. An increasing proportion of production is sold today to clients in Europe and USA.
A long-term approach has consistently been Lagerstedt & Krantz distinguishing trademark, together with the ability to think afresh with the needs of the world around in focus. In this way we have succeeded in coupling up with quality products from other company’s allowing new life to be breathed into growth. We were therefore able, during the 1980’s, to expand into the development and production within our company of more technically advanced products and services. Business activity has, thus, developed through new growth spurts, subsidiaries, business areas and overseas establishment.
Business area Marine and Industrial valves
Lagerstedt & Krantz’s acquisition of a Norwegian Heating and Plumbing company in 1990 is another example of our ability to rapidly take advantage of new business opportunities. Aside from Heating and Plumbing products, the Norwegian acquisition turned out to include a Swedish agent for bronze valves for marine installations. A product area that, over a short period of time, gained a substantial market amongst the Norwegian shipyards. Lagerstedt & Krantz found themselves quite suddenly in a new business area: Marine and Industrial valves. Today the business area accounts for growing sales volumes with clients around the world, own production in China, sales offices in Singapore and with sales, warehousing and administration in Helsingborg in Sweden and Leirvik in Norway.
Company owners – Behm Family
Since 1995, the company group Lagerstedt & Krantz has been owned entirely by the Behm family. The family’s representatives in the company are the group’s authorised signatories Claes Behm and his son Erik. The driving force over the years has been to create a solvent and self-financed company of growth. With the long-term perspective in mind, profit is used to develop the company, which has reduced the risks involved in taking on investments in new products and markets, explains Claes Behm.
In spite of increased, global competition the future looks bright. Lagerstedt & Krantz have well established administrative synergies, where the infrastructure for, e.g. IT and finance are in the hands of the parent company, in order that the subsidiaries can dedicate themselves to that which they do best. Our model for internal recruitment gives employees the opportunity to grow in line with the business. Many of our employees have devoted much of their lives to Lagerstedt & Krantz and several families have worked with us over generations.
Our international experience grows as our company expands overseas and our business areas have greater commercial synergies in their product range, where different competences can be intertwined and thereby increase the group’s collective value added.
Lagerstedt & Krantz is, in other words, a dynamic 100 year old. We are celebrating this anniversary with greater presence at this year’s branch exhibitions, and not least through the establishment of the new company LK Valves Asia in Singapore. With new sales drives – and experience dating over a whole century – we continue to expand into new markets. Hopefully for a further 100 years.