Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

With clients including major car manufacturers, furniture producers, the building industry and fashion labels, Hornschuch has secured a 5,500 sq foot warehouse and office space by utilising IMK for tours of the city, bespoke property searches, viewings and introductions to local suppliers.

Employing over 800 people worldwide and enjoying a turnover of 143,500 million euros in the 2006 business year, Hornschuch produces PVC foils for home decoration, building and furniture industry, imitation leather for car manufacturers and upholstery materials for fashion labels.

Established in 1898, the company has been global since day one with offices, production plants and customers across the world. Today the production facility is in Germany with satellite offices in Italy, Russia, the Czech Republic and France.

The MK operation will handle sales and distribution for all UK based customers.

“When we decided to open a UK office we looked at our most eastern, western, northern and southern clients, and decided to pick a location central to them all,” said Sven Hlywiak, managing director Hornschuch UK Ltd.

“This gave us three locations to consider: Milton Keynes, Bedford and Northampton. After researching the areas the unique business environment of Milton Keynes won through. Its positioning near airports and motorways meant that logistically it was very strong on a national and international scale.

“Further to this, because of the grid square system, Milton Keynes suffers from virtually no traffic jams which means less time is wasted travelling to the office and to see clients.”

The Hornschuch coup is the latest in a long line of successes for Invest Milton Keynes: 2006 brought a huge interest in companies wishing to relocate to, or expand within, Milton Keynes.

IMK experienced its highest number of commercial property inquiries for four years in 2006-2007 – a 47 per cent increase on the like for like figures from 2005-2006 with 432 companies contacting them compared to 295.