Kelvion, a leading global manufacturer of industrial heat exchangers, announced a portfolio and leadership transition in which the company will spin-off its Thermal Engineered Solutions (“TES”) Business Unit and Andy Blandford will succeed Jürgen Vinkenflügel as Chief Executive Officer of the remaining Kelvion business.
The legal carve-out of the TES Business Unit is expected to be completed by January 11, 2022 (subject to final clarifications on tax and legal matters). Immediately upon such completion, each entity in the reorganized TES Business Unit will remain a subsidiary of Mangrove LuxCo IV S.à r.l.a.
At the same time, Kelvion will execute the planned transition in its leadership team. Andy Blandford will join Kelvion on December 1st, 2021 and will take over as CEO on January 1st, 2022, while Jürgen will assume a success-critical new role as Chairman of the Board of the TES Business Unit on January 1st, 2022 as the TES Business Unit is preparing its spin-off from Kelvion. Hubertus Mühlhäuser will continue as Chairman of the Board of Kelvion.
"My passion for Kelvion, with its 100-year history, our employees and our customers have been my main drivers throughout the years. Together, we have achieved a lot, building a solid momentum and two strong growth platforms around Kelvion´s Product and Project businesses. I believe that now is the right time for me to hand over the baton for the Kelvion Group and focus on the Spin-Off of the TES Business Unit”, said Jürgen Vinkenflügel.
Jürgen Vinkenflügel has played an instrumental role in developing a compelling strategy, fostering the “Kelvion Spirit”, and improving both financial performance and operational processes. Hubertus Mühlhäuser, Chairman of the Board at Kelvion, underlines this: "Under Jürgen’s strong leadership, the company has been successfully transformed and returned to profitable growth. We are very grateful to him for all his achievements and that he will continue as Chairman of the to be spun-off TES Business Unit”.
Andy Blandford, the incoming CEO, is an experienced executive with a highly relevant industrial background and a consistent track record of delivering strong results as well as building great teams. Andy is an exceptional fit as CEO for the next phase of Kelvion’s corporate development with an emphasis on profitable growth, innovation, and operational excellence.
Andy joins Kelvion from DEMATIC, the world’s leading provider of supply chain solutions, where he served as SVP/Managing Director for Northern Europe and latterly as SVP Execution/Operations for EMEA. His previous experience includes roles at CNH Industrial, where he was VP, Construction Equipment, EMEA, and at AGCO Corporation (a leading agricultural machinery manufacturer), where he was VP Manufacturing, USA and later VP Sales and Marketing covering Europe and APAC. Andy has also served at JCB Excavators as Director/GM of both JCB Compact Products and JCB Cab Systems. Andy graduated from the University of Hertfordshire, UK with an honors degree in Manufacturing Systems Engineering and has studied global leadership at the INSEAD Business School, France.
"The Kelvion team has developed a profitable growth strategy which I have reviewed and fully support. Kelvion has many strengths to build upon: relentless customer focus, high quality and innovative product offerings, operational excellence, efficient support functions, and growth in after-sales. These strengths are mission critical pillars to further solidify our position in the marketplace and to ensure that our company succeeds in the long term. I am very excited to support Kelvion and the whole organization to deliver the defined strategy and our financial targets in the years to come”, explains Andy Blandford.
