History
The swede Harry Douglas Stickler from Malmö starts an wholesaling company in Berlin in April 1907. The main business was utensils for the coach- and early car industry. 1916 he opens a branch office in Malmö which will be relocated to Stockholm already next year. Mr Stickler has at this point also an employment as sales manager for the company Stora Kopparberg.
1922 the company Stickler & Magnusson AB was founded. The other partner, Helge Magnusson had a history within the steel industry and brought some major agencies to the company. 1926 they was appointed agents in Sweden for the German bearing company FAG.
1933 Stickler & Magnusson was shut down owing to the serious problems during the great depression, but at the same time Stickler starts his own company Harry Stickler in Stockholm, which had been active in Berlin with other owners all the time. From then focus was set on small parts for the general industry.
1934 the company requires the agency for the simmering in Sweden. It was produced by Simmerwerke in Germany and was the first synthetic shaft seal for the sealing of ball bearings.
1938 starts to import socket head screws from the German company Jacob Faulstroh who had started to produce according to new American methods . The same year Harry Stickler AB is founded with a share capital of 25000 SEK. Next connection was taken with A. Friedrich Flender, a German supplier of transmissions which was the start for these kind of products in the company. Owing to growing demand for products 3 different companies was started. One for the bearings, Kullager FAG AB, one for the transmissions, Harry Stickler Maskinaktiebolag beside the old company Harry Stickler AB.
After the war shortage of goods from the bombed German industry lead to that connections was established with an English supplier of seals, Georg Angus in Newcastle .
In the early fifties many new contacts was taken. A supplier of retaining rings, Seeger-Orbis GmbH was added to the suppliers of the company, and shortly afterwards a cooperation was established with company MAN, mainly for the import of diesel engines for the Swedish wharf industry . This year also a new product line was established when the cooperation with the German forklifter producer started.
Under the fifties and sixties the company grew stronger which forced the company to establish a new plant south of Stockholm. Also 3 branch offices in Göteborg, Malmö and Nässjö had been opened earlier.
Harry Douglas Stickler passed away 1968 and the company was run by the family but was sold to one of the companies employee, except for FAG which already 1969 was taken over by the German mother company. The cooperation however continued until 1978.
During the seventies the company expanded further and by 1976 a new plant was opened not far from the old plant. At the same time some new companies was bought. One of them was Drivteknik AB, a company working with transmission solutions . However the eighties did not progressed as earlier decades and decisions was taken that led to the merging of Harry Stickler and Drivteknik. The new company was named Stickler-Drivteknik AB . The competition grew harder and the owner got trouble with the financing and in 1985 the company was sold to an investment group called Alma Invest. That only lasted for a couple of years and then another owner appeared, Convectus, where as it happened Bix Skruv & Mutter was one company in the group. Stickler became a sister company with Bix and shortly afterwards in 1989 Convectus was sold to Finnveden Invest. For both companies Bult Finnveden AB (Bufab) within Finnveden Invest became the new mother company.
1990 Stickler moved to a new plant I Skogås south of Stockholm. After a few tough years in the beginning of the nineties the company started to show good results which led to a request for expansion through acquisitions and by 1999 a new company, J.Danielson & Co. AB was bought. This company had started 1930 as agents for supplier of tooling machines, but started in the fifties with import of fasteners for the aerospace industry. One supplier was the American manufacturer Huck Manufacturing Co. The two companies merged and Danielson & Stickler was born, which later was to be Bufab Danielson & Stickler AB. 2007 the company celebrated its 100 year jubilee.
2011 Bufab Danielson & Stickler AB ceased as a legal unit and merged with the sister Bufab Bix AB under the new name Bufab Bix Stickler AB and are now found under the same address I Täby north of Stockholm.
Much has happened since the first screw left BIX.
It all started in 1946 when the Swedish industry suffered lack of components, mainly of small parts such as fasteners. Up till the end of the war there was mainly a production of parts for the heavy industry such as big bolts. The founder of Bix, Mr Rune Lundén who had a past in the Swedish company Svenska Radioaktiebolaget (later Ericsson), saw the opportunity to market small screws, that was more and more in use in the Swedish industry. The family business Bix was founded. During the fifties and sixties the company was situated in the hart of Stockholm. However orders as well as the number of employees was growing fast which 1969 led to a decision to move to bigger premises in Täby north of Stockholm where the company still are situated.
In 1971 the family business was sold to a company called Svenska Navigator which was a holding company connected to the Swedish government. In 1978 the first acquisition was made when the company Skruv & Mutter AB was taken over. That company had a history of importing from the Far East, mainly Japan and this led to an opening of new importing opportunities. After another change of premises in 1976 the company 1980 once more got new owners when another government company, Statsföretag later known as Procordia, took over. During the eighties the company grew bigger and by the middle of the decade another change of owners made Bix once more a private company, when the investment group Convectus, a company close to Trelleborg, took over. Shortly hereafter they also acquired the company Stickler Drivteknik AB and two, nowadays merged companies, became sister companies.
In 1989 the new owners themselves was acquired by Finnveden AB and one of their daughters, Bult Finnveden AB ( Bufab)became the new mother company. The nineties was another successful decade, which can be explained by the development in the telecom business. This has also continued during the first decade of the new millennium and the company have had a faithful group of customers among producers within the telecom as well as medicine equipment industry. The merging with Bufab Danielson & Stickler has started a new era which will be a challenge for the future.
Full circle. More than 100 years after the foundation there are still a lot left from the heritage of earlier owners and employees. The companies still have a role to play in the new society that has grown during a century.