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Gutta Werke - A Retrospective on almost 50 years of Tradition and Innovation

1955	The company guttaterna GmbH is founded in Offenburg, Germany. The company produces the guttaterna unvulcanized rubber sealant and is a general importer for Onduline bitumen corrugated sheets in Germany.
1965	The company EldaAG is founded in Glarus, Switzerland by four partners. It takes over guttaterna GmbH and begins to manufacture guttaflex bitumen corrugated sheets that are later renamed guttanit.
1968 - 1979	The corporate group begins to operate on the international market. Various licensing agreements are signed, for example, in Italy, East Germany, and in Mexico. The company builds its own factory for the manufacture of bitumen corrugated sheets in Lincolton in the United States.
1980 - 1990	The strategic diversification leads to the sales of plastics products with separate trademarks such as guttagliss, guttacryl, guttaplane and guttabeta. Thus begins the company's role as supplier to "Do-it-yourself" markets. At the same time, the Development Project "Rwanda" begins in central Africa which is sponsored by the Swiss Foreign Aid Office, the country of Rwanda and the company Elda AG. The idea behind the project is to use papyrus, a plant native to the area and that grows back quickly, as the main raw material to produce bitumen corrugated sheets for the African Continent.
1989 - 1994	Years of cooperative partnerships, investments, company buyouts follow. The Italian market is opened up thanks to the group's take-over of the company Coverlite in Filago and the establishment of a cooperative partnership with a well-known German manufacturer of building materials. An additional, high-level cooperative partnership is established in Poland. In the Czech Republic and Slovenia, local trading companies come on board as cooperative partners. The "Rwanda" Project becomes a reality. After two years of work to get the project off the ground, sheet production begins, only to be stopped again due to civil war and unrest.
1994	The merger and later take-over of the KWS Kunststoffwaren Vertriebs GmbH in Waibstadt, Germany by the Gutta Werke Schutterwald leads to a much improved position in the European market. In India, the corporate group acquires shares in a company called Modernroof in Hyderabad, the largest manufacturer of bitumen corrugated sheets on the subcontinent.
1994 - 1996	The group's organization adapts to new business conditions. The group opens Gutta International in Zürich and Schutterwald as well as Gutta Engineering in Bäretswil. Extensive Investments lead to qualitative and quantitative production optimization, improvements in environmental protection, and the construction of the logistics center in Schutterwald near Offenburg.
1997 - 1998	The Gutta Werke factory in Schutterwald receives the ISO 9002 Certificate. Additional branch offices for selling and marketing the entire product line are opened in Slovenia, Croatia, and Hungary. After many years of development work, the fire-resistant subroof, a special product for the Mediterranean countries, is launched on the market.
1999 - 2002	Gutta Werke in Filago are certified according to ISO 9002 and ISO 14001. Start of the manufacturing of guttabeta dimpled membranes and guttagarden lawn bar elements at the Italian production site in Filago. Other foreign companies in the Czech Republic, Poland and the Baltics are added. With the commitment of Dr. Rochus Kobler, the company owner, Christoph Dicken von Oetinger, paves the way to ensure continuity in the management of the Gutta Group.
2003 - 2004	The Gutta Group’s holding structure and management structure are reorganized. An ‘Executive Committee’ (EXCO), a ‘Management Team’ (MT) and ‘Corporate Functions’ are created. By establishing function- and project-specific teams, the information flow is adapted to this new structure. The operating reports and budgets from all group companies periodically flow into the consolidated figures of the Gutta Group.
2005 - 2009	Other optimizations in the production logistics and distribution, the expansion of Gutta Baltic and the founding of new group companies in Romania and Russia result in a significant increase in the turnover and profitability. The manufacturing capacities for the company’s products are nearly doubled, thereby actively securing the company location. The Gutta Group’s strategic branding is revised and communicated.