With the acquisition of Benteler Distribution, the Swedish family business Heléns Rör also became part of Van Leeuwen. The almost 100-year-old company Heléns employs 280 persons and is a strong player in the steel tube and bar distribution in Scandinavia. The company has subsidiaries in Scandinavia and the Baltic States. With ThyssenKrupp, Heléns has a joint venture in Finland (Polarputki).
Customers in the mechanical and automotive industries collectively represent approximately 55 percent of its sales. In addition, Heléns operates in the process segment of the energy market. The company supplies for projects for pulp and paper, mining, chemical industries and power plants, amongst others. The company also supplies products for the construction and furniture industries.
Eva Täljegård, Regional Director Heléns:
‘Heléns and Van Leeuwen have a lot in common. We too are a company with a long history and a great deal of knowledge of products and logistics. Furthermore, we are also known for our perseverance and entrepreneurship. We have 32 cutting lines and three laser machines and cut approximately 34 million components to size every year. In addition, we have a great deal of technical knowledge in-house and provide added value services together with external partners, such as welding, drilling, protective coating and assembling. We have a full product range in-house with standard and customer specific products for the Nordic market, which enables us to provide the customer with full service solutions.
Like Van Leeuwen, we service customers throughout the world, such as Volvo, Sandvik (mining technology) and Thule (roof boxes and other accessories). Joining Van Leeuwen strengthens our already strong international network in our efforts to create optimal and efficient solutions for all our customers. Furthermore, Van Leeuwen is very strong in managing international projects. In turn, we have a great deal of knowledge and experience concerning the pulp and paper industry. By combining our knowledge and strengths, we will be able to do more projects together.’
Emil Nilsson, Strategic Business Development Manager at Heléns:
Emil Nilsson, Strategic Business Development Manager at Heléns, explains that the partnership with Volvo provides an excellent overview of what a partnership means at Heléns. ‘We have been working closely together with Volvo for 25 years, and are involved by the customer from the start of the drawing process. We supply a total of approximately 250 components/modules to Volvo. For every component/module we develop a custom plan together with information about all aspects, such as the processes, tolerances and material specifications. We work on the basis of serial production and supply Volvo throughout the world – in Sweden, the US, Brazil and Belgium – and support the customer through to the aftermarket phase. This means that we make approximately 4,000 deliveries on an annual basis.’ Emil emphasizes: ‘Because every component is custom-made, effective cooperation with suppliers is essential. We invest a great deal in this as well.’
Better Shelter
Heléns is proud of its contribution to Better Shelter, an IKEA social enterprise that develops building packages for temporary accommodations in refugee camps. Täljegård: ‘We contributed product and material ideas to the construction and supplied tubes for the 20,000 homes in 2019. We expect additional homes to be built in 2020.’
Per Wagner, Senior Project Manager at Heléns: ‘Our product knowledge, network and accessibility have all been a strong resource in the development and have enabled Better Shelter to deliver better and more dignified homes to the many vulnerable people living in the refugee camps around the world.’