New shared services centre being established in Brno

7 Sep. 2011 | CzechInvest | Up to 100 jobs will be created at European centre of U.S. company Gardner Denver, Inc (NYSE: GDI).

Gardner Denver is building its European shared services centre in Brno. The main reasons behind the project are lower administrative costs resulting from having a central facility and management, and suitable conditions for doing business in general. The company is planning to employ one hundred people by the end of 2013; investments in office renovations and acquisition of furnishings and IT equipment total roughly CZK 20 million. Gardner Denver has prepared to spend an additional CZK 7.5 million on recruitment of new employees and training. CzechInvest has provided substantial assistance for this investment project.

“In recent years Brno has attracted a full range of investments in business support services. To a certain extent, the region has undergone exactly the change which we are striving to achieve for the Czech Republic as a whole – to progressively bring in an ever greater number of investments in research and development, business support services and technologically very demanding production instead of manufacturing projects,” says Minister of Industry and Trade Martin Kocourek.

“Before building the new centre, Gardner Denver looked at other countries in Central and Eastern Europe – for example, Poland, Bulgaria and Romania,” says CzechInvest CEO Miroslav Křížek, describing the situation, and adding: “I am very pleased that, following discussions with CzechInvest, the company decided to locate its investment in the Czech Republic.”

“The Czech Republic is a very attractive country for building our European shared services centre. CzechInvest was very helpful in providing the necessary macroeconomic data and information about the local administrative authorities, subsidies and important contacts. Thanks to the new centre, finance processes will be more efficient and better controlled throughout our organisation and the experience and expertise of our talented employees will be concentrated in one place,” explains Michael M. Larsen, Vice President and CFO of Gardner Denver.

Gardner Denver, Inc., with 2010 revenues of approximately $1.9 billion, is a leading worldwide manufacturer of highly engineered products, including compressors, liquid ring pumps and blowers for various industrial, medical, environmental, transportation and process applications, pumps used in the petroleum and industrial market segments and other fluid transfer equipment, such as loading arms and dry break couplers, serving chemical, petroleum and food industries.In the future, the company is planning to apply for funding from the European Union programme ICT and Business Support Services, which is part of the Operational Programme Enterprise and Innovation. CzechInvest is responsible for distributing aid from this programme in the Czech Republic according to clearly defined criteria.