Wienerberger AG

Founded in 1819 in Vienna and traded since 1869 on the Vienna Stock Exchange, Wienerberger can look back on a great tradition. Only in 1986 the company started its dynamic expansion, which has focused on building materials since the introduction of Value Management in 1997. This transformed Wienerberger from a local Austrian brick-maker into the world’s largest producer of bricks within a few years. During this time the number of production facilities rose from 11 to a level of 229 plants in 27 countries.

The construction industry was hard hit by the worldwide recession in 2009, which triggered a sharp drop in the demand for building materials. On the one hand, new residential construction is heavily dependent on bank financing and, on the other hand, consumers tend to postpone investment decisions as a reaction to the weak economy and uncertain expectations for the future. Wienerberger implemented a wide-ranging action plan to adjust capacity to reflect these developments, which also included active working capital management to reduce inventories, a decrease in administrative and selling costs and a cutback in investments to the necessary minimum.