Agrifac buys Matrix Agritech from Kuiken N.V.

Agrifac Machinery B.V. in Steenwijk reached an agreement with Kuiken N.V. about the purchase of the outlets of Matrix Agritech Technical Services in Russia.

The outlets are located in Belgorod, Moscow Oblast, Lipetsk, Kursk and the Republic of Mordovia. All staff, equipment, parts, service vans, tools and non John Deere related assets are part of the deal. Agrifac Machinery B.V. wants to guarantee by this move the proper service of the hundreds of sugar beet harvesters and sprayers delivered in the past. The mission of the company which will work under the new name Agrifac Russia ooo is to become the number one supplier of Agrifac Machinery (pulled and self propelled sprayers, self propelled sugar beet harvesters and self propelled potato harvesters on the Russian market. Agrifac Russia ooo intends to sell and service the Agrifac Machinery through it's own outlets and new to be appointed dealers.

Agrifac Russia ooo will be managed by Ton Schotman whom has been the Service Director of Matrix Agritech in Russia for the past 15 years. Ton Schotman will also become a share-holder in the new to be established company, majority of the shares will be owned by Agrifac Machinery B.V. in Steenwijk.

In November 2008 Agrifac Machinery B.V. was taken over by Peter Millenaar (former COO of Matrix Group) and Ton Verhoeven (former CEO of Matrix Group). Currently Peter Millenaar is C.E.O of Agrifac Machinery and Ton Verhoeven is Director Marketing and Sales of Agrifac. Both have a longlasting experience on the Russian market (20 years) as the dealers for John Deere, Agrifac and Mac Don among other brands.

As announced the new management (Peter Millenaar and Ton Verhoeven) focuses on, besides building on the technical leading position, the optimizing of service and delivery times. By outsourcing the metal alteration and concentration on the development and assembly of the machines the capacity of the factory is improved. From January 3 - 4 self propelled machines left the factory on a weekly basis.

Besides sprayers (Condor, Eagle, Milan and Falcon) Agrifac also manufactures selfpropelled beet (Big Six, Hexa and Quatro, in Russia know as WKM 9000) and potato harvesters (Tapir and Raptor). The machines are value steady, efficient and off course technically leading with as a result having the lowest costs per hectare.

As well in Russia as in Europe Agrifac pays a lot of attention to knowledge transfer, for this reason the new Agrifac Academy has been established in Steenwijk.

The new owners of Agrifac also introduced the 4e's for growers concept which means that all machinery should be designed and build in order to be economic, eco, efficient and ergonomic for the end users.