Dieffenbacher Acquires Pagnoni

German machine and plant manufacturer Dieffenbacher has acquired the Italian family-owned company Pagnoni Impianti S.r.l., headquartered in Aicurzio, about 30 km northeast of Milan. The company will operate under the new name Pagnoni Dieffenbacher S.r.l. The acquisition includes the assets and expertise of the plant manufacturer and four-person team led by Managing Director Michele Pagnoni, the sixth generation of his family to run the long-established company.

Pagnoni Impianti was founded in 1848 by brothers Stefano and Martino Pagnoni as a manufacturer of oil presses and pasta-shaping machines and systems. After World War I, Nicola Pagnoni, grandson of one of the company’s founders, began producing hot-plate presses, particularly for plywood production. Since then, Pagnoni has specialized in producing single- and multi-opening presses and press lines for the production of particleboard, plywood, MDF and hardboard, as well as HPL decorative laminates and short-cycle lines for melamine and phenolic paper coating. 

“Pagnoni fits in perfectly with our values at Dieffenbacher. The company is highly regarded in the industry for its partnership-based approach to doing business and its technically sound and well-engineered machines and systems,” says Dieffenbacher CFO Lukas Langer. 

With the acquisition of the company, Dieffenbacher will focus on existing Pagnoni customers as a first step. “The personal support provided by the familiar Pagnoni contacts will continue. The Pagnoni team will also be supported by our entire global Dieffenbacher service network,” explains Ralf Schmidt, Head of Global Lifetime Service Wood & Recycling at Dieffenbacher.

Dieffenbacher will use its after-sales expertise to maintain and strengthen the support of existing business relationships for service, spare parts supply and modernizations. Since the customer base of Pagnoni and Dieffenbacher largely overlaps, this will produce considerable synergy potential on both sides. 

In the medium to long term, Dieffenbacher will add Pagnoni products to its portfolio. “In particular, the short-cycle, HPL and plywood plants will be a useful addition to our range of services. We will also incorporate know-how in single and multi-opening plants for producing wood-based panels into our product range,” says Stefan Zipf, Head of the Wood Business Unit at Dieffenbacher.