KÖCO celebrates 70th anniversary

In 1952, Bruno Köster founded the company Köster & Co. in order to produce welding studs for the power plant and shipbuilding industry. Fast forward to today, KÖCO is the general market leader in stud welding technology and more successful than ever before. We celebrated our remarkable evolution during the past 70 years, in mid-August with our employees and loyal partners.

More than 150 guests celebrated together with music, good food as well as cocktails and had plenty of opportunities to connect and look back on KÖCOs achievements in the last couple of decades.

One important milestone for the entrepreneurial development of our company took place in 2008. In the years prior, KÖCO had made a name for itself internationally by entering the markets in China, Russia and the United Arab Emirates. This attracted the interest of the INDUS Holding, who found KÖCO to be the perfect addition to their portfolio of attractive medium-sized companies and went on to incorporate the company as a subsidiary that same year – to the benefit of employees and customers.

With the support of the INDUS Holding as our strategic partner for further growth, KÖCO was able to position itself on the market as an even more reliable partner for its customers. To mark KÖCOs special anniversary and to emphasize the strong bond between the two Axel Meyer, representing the INDUS Holding, handed over a giant insect hotel as gift. The gift itself was made even more special by the fact that it was built in the training workshop of another INDUS subsidiary: ASS Maschinenbau GmbH in Overath.

Another very important milestone happened in the year 2010, when Dr. Harald Schulz was appointed sole Managing Director of Köster & Co. – a position he held with great success for the past 12 years. In his role, he played a key part in shaping the first years after joining the INDUS family and also in further expanding KÖCOs market leadership position. Dr. Schulz used the anniversary celebrations to reflect on his time as the head of the company and expressed his sincere thanks to everyone involved for the excellent cooperation in the past years.

At the same time, he also took the opportunity to officially welcome KÖCOs new managing directors: Thomas Fink and Dr. Torben Schmitz will continue Dr. Schulz's work, who expressed his gratitude for being able to hand over operations to this highly capable duo.

The festivities went on deep into the night and even now, over a month later, we are still getting a lot of positive feedback regarding this special evening. We think back fondly to a lot of good conversations, exciting speeches and the overall exuberant atmosphere. With our partners at our side and the entire KÖCO-Team there to support us in our mission, we are looking forward to a bright future.