For more than 20 years, the Lindemann brand was part of Finland-based Metso, which merged with fellow Finnish company Outotec in 2020. Lindemann represented the combined company’s Metal Recycling business unit. In the summer of 2021, Metso Outotec decided to divest this business unit as part of its restructuring, selling it to the Swedish investment firm Mimir AB.
“The business will be operated under the name Lindemann – Metal Recycling Solutions from day one and in this manner find its way back to its legendary roots,” Mirmir Managing Partner and Group Chairman Joakim Notö said at the time the purchase was announced.
Lindemann CEO and Director Ioannis Giouvanitskas says, “Mimir has all the necessary resources to support Lindemann in expanding its leading position in the market in the medium term—a great opportunity for lifting the company to the next level and to return its focus to the core values of the founder Waldemar Lindemann: quality, performance and innovation.”
Lindemann – Metal Recycling Solutions will be based in Düsseldorf, Germany, in North Rhine-Westphalia. The company’s functional departments, administration and service center will operate from Düsseldorf, Giouvanitskas says. “The connections to our international sites are simply ideal from here. Lindemann currently has 180 employees at 14 locations worldwide,” he adds.
The service center, including the logistics area, occupies more than 8,000 square meters (more than 86,000 square feet) in Düsseldorf. The center repairs shredder housings and rotors, and small shredders and baling presses are assembled at the site. A large part of the machine production takes place regionally, within a radius of 150 kilometers (less than 100 miles) from Düsseldorf. Giouvanitskas says, “After we closed down our production facilities on Erkrather Straße in 2015, we successfully outsourced almost the entire production of the original Lindemann machines to specialized regional cooperation partners. The physical proximity to these partners allows us reliable quality assurance and high flexibility in the entire manufacturing process of our machines.”
Global demand for steel will continue to rise in the medium term, Lindemann says, and demand for secondary raw materials such as steel and scrap metal also will increase significantly.
Steel production in many countries is being switched to more energy-efficient and CO2-reduced production processes, such as the electric arc furnace method, which enable the use of up to 100 percent ferrous scrap.
“This development is having a very positive impact on our business,” says Martin Hafer, chief financial officer and managing director of Lindemann Germany GmbH. “The new machine business as well as the demand for services have risen noticeably. In addition, as a premium supplier, we are constantly being asked by our discerning customers to offer sustainable complete solutions in all of our business areas.”
This is where the optimized hydraulics of the Lindemann EtaCut II shears is highlighted, the company says. This machine is equipped with what the company describes as “intelligent” pump control that only supplies power when it is needed. The 400-bar technology also ensures significantly lower flow losses.
Giouvanitskas adds that the company is planning to introduce a standardized midrange product line with the quality of premium machines, so smaller companies can invest in a Lindemann machine.
Lindemann’s approach to motor control with frequency converters promises a higher overall efficiency of the drive system while also reducing unwanted peak loads, according to the company. The Shredder Drive Assistant supports the machine driver in its daily work and ensures significant production increases in the double-digit percentage range while also saving energy because of the more uniform use of the drive system.
Giouvanitskas says, “We want to invest even more in new technologies, drive digitalization forward and increasingly take on environmental issues such as the reduction of emission values ?through state-of-the-art dedusting systems.”
