public isin ch0000816824 industry engineering construction founded 1973 2000 2006 headquarters freienbach switzerland key people roland fischer ceo michael s ss chairman of the board revenue chf 3 03 billion 2014 number of employees 15 656 end of 2014 website oc oerlikon oc oerlikon is a listed technology group headquartered in pf ffikon schwyz switzerland . the name oerlikon or rlikon as the company styles itself according to its corporate identity comes from the oerlikon district in zurich where the group has its origins . the roots of today s oc oerlikon are to be found in werkzeugmaschinenfabrik oerlikon which was established in 1906 and evolved into oerlikon b hrle holding in 1973 . following an extensive restructuring process the holding was renamed unaxis at the start of 2000 . the austrian victory industriebeteiligung ag acquired a majority share in unaxis in 2005 . new management initiated a restructuring effort that manifested itself in a new name oc oerlikon from the beginning of september 2005 . at the end of 2006 the saurer group was acquired and integrated into oc oerlikon . contents 1 corporate affairs 1.1 executive committee 1.2 board of directors 1.3 corporate structure 1.4 ownership structure 2 history 2.1 oerlikon b hrle 2.2 unaxis 2.3 naming disputes 2.4 takeover of saurer 2.5 restructuring and recapitalization 2.6 reorganization and partial sale of the textile segment 3 see also 4 external links 5 references corporate affairs edit executive committee edit in may 2004 thomas limberger was appointed to the board of directors ; in june 2005 at the request of the majority shareholder victory industriebeteiligung he was named ceo of unaxis as the company was known at the time . under limberger two further roles were added to the executive committee in february 2007 general counsel filled by bjoern bajan and coo uwe kr ger . limberger stayed with the company until may 2007 when he resigned as ceo and from the board of directors and joined von roll holding . upon his resignation limberger was replaced as ceo by uwe kr ger whose previous position as coo remained vacant until september 2008 when it was filled by thomas babacan . at the presentation of the interim financial results on august 25 2009 it was announced that uwe kr ger would be leaving the company with immediate effect . the position of ceo was temporarily filled by hans ziegler who had been a member of the board of directors since may 2008 . on may 19 2010 michael buscher assumed the role of ceo relieving hans ziegler as interim ceo . adrian cojocaru was appointed chief hr officer in november 2010 . the position of chief restructuring officer which had been created during the restructuring process and was occupied by raafat morcos was abolished again following the end of the restructuring program on august 17 2011 . the post of chief operating officer that had been left vacant following the departure of thomas babacan on december 31 2011 was not occupied again . 2 the chief hr officer adrian cojocaru left the company at the end of 2012 . ceo michael buscher left the company on march 14 2013 . he was replaced as ceo on an interim basis by cfo j rg fedier who at that time was the only member of the executive committee . 3 brice koch took up the position of ceo of oc oerlikon in january 2014 allowing j rg fedier to focus on his original role as cfo . 4 in february 2016 oerlikon announced former siemens ag manager roland fischer would replace brice koch as ceo . 5 board of directors edit the board of directors is responsible for the supervision and strategic management of the company . at oerlikon s 42nd annual general meeting of shareholders dr. michael s ss was appointed chairman of the board of directors and dr. mary gresens and johan van de steen were appointed to the board of directors for the first time . the current members of the board of directors of oc oerlikon corporation ag pf ffikon are dr. michael s ss member and chairman of the board of directors dr. mary gresens member of the board of directors mikhail lifshitz member of the board of directors gerhard pegam member of the board of directors johan van de steen member of the board of directors hans ziegler member of the board of directors although michael s ss mikhail lifshitz and johan van de steen represent the interests of the renova group all six members of the board of directors are independent as defined by the swiss code of best practice for corporate governance . corporate structure edit oc oerlikon currently has four segments manmade fibers segment oerlikon barmag and oerlikon neumag drive systems segment oerlikon graziano and oerlikon fairfield vacuum segment oerlikon leybold vacuum surface solutions segment oerlikon balzers and oerlikon metco the following divisions of the oerlikon components business unit which were designated as not in line with the company s core business were divested in 2009 oerlikon esec semiconductors was sold in april 2009 to the dutch company be semiconductor industries besi and oerlikon space aerospace engineering was sold off in june 2009 to ruag holding . the last remaining company in the oerlikon optics business unit optics oerlikon optics shanghai was sold off in mid august 2009 to the british company eis optics which had been newly set up by the london based private equity firms nova capital management limited and ff & p private equity limited . since that time oerlikon components has operated as the advanced technologies segment . on march 2 2012 oerlikon signed a contract of sale with tokyo electron for its solar division oerlikon solar which employed 675 people at eight locations around the world including its headquarters in tr bbach switzerland near the border to liechtenstein . tokyo electron limited is one of the world s leading suppliers of semiconductor production equipment and is active in r & d manufacturing and sales in a wide range of product fields . 6 the sale of oerlikon solar was finalized on november 27 2012 . the japanese electronics and semiconductor company announced in 2014 the closure of its micromorph development program it acquired from oerlikon despite the improvements made in thin film silicon cell technology . 7 8 on december 3 2012 oerlikon announced that it was selling two business units from its textile segment natural fibers and textile components to the chinese jinsheng group to allow the textile segment to focus on its manmade fibers business . the sale of the natural fibers business unit was finalized on july 4 2013 . 9 on june 2 2014 oerlikon acquired metco from sulzer ag integrating it into its existing coating segment to create a global provider of surface solutions in the form of the surface solutions segment currently the company s largest segment . 10 on december 23 2014 oerlikon announced that it had reached an agreement on the sale of its advanced technologies segment to the swiss company evatec ag . this sale was closed ahead of schedule and the segment s 200 employees and all of its assets were successfully transferred to evatec on february 3 2015 . ownership structure edit the ownership structure of oc oerlikon has gone through numerous drastic changes over the years partly due to some large options transactions . when the company was recapitalized its shareholder structure changed once again . oerlikon s annual report 2014 gives the shareholder structure as follows 11 percentage stake shareholder remarks 47 92 % renova group 0 28 % oc oerlikon corporation ag 51 80 % public float history edit oerlikon b hrle edit headquarters in pf ffikon switzerland the foundations for oc oerlikon were laid when oerlikon b hrle holding ag was established in 1973 . at its peak in 1980 the holding company had 37 000 employees . at the start of the 1980s the group already had an aerospace division set up in 1964 as part of contraves ag and a thin film vacuum technology division which it had had since 1976 when the company took over balzers ag . due to poor performance in 1991 the group was forced to concentrate on certain divisions only . the decision was taken to restructure the company and focus exclusively on technology . this narrowing of the company s focus was driven by the 1994 takeover of the leybold group a specialist in vacuum technology which was merged with balzers to form balzers & leybold a leading company in thin film technology which would later become oerlikon b hrle s core business . the biggest turning point for the company came in 1999 with the sale of various core businesses and virtually all interests in other companies that no longer fitted oerlikon s new business concept . the company sold its arms division oerlikon oerlikon contraves defence to the german rheinmetall detec where it now operates under the new name of rheinmetall air defence ag . oerlikon b hrle immobilien ag was sold to allreal holding where it acquired its present name of allreal generalunternehmung ag . the shoe and accessories manufacturer bally was sold to the us based texas pacific group . oerlikon b hrle was renamed unaxis in january 2000 . unaxis edit in mid 2000 unaxis acquired a majority share in the semiconductor manufacturer esec ag . toward the end of that year it sold pilatus flugzeugwerke ag pilatus flugzeugwerke ag the last company that did not fit in with the rest of unaxis technology portfolio . in december 2001 unaxis spun off leybold optics once again but retained the vacuum technology division . at the beginning of 2004 unaxis was restructured into five segments semiconductor equipment data storage solutions coating services vacuum solutions and components and special systems . a merger in march 2004 placed esec entirely under the ownership of unaxis . poor performance in fy 2004 from the semiconductor division of esec meant losses of chf 372 million for unaxis and a slump in its share price . the esec business unit was eventually sold again in april 2009 . in june 2005 unaxis new majority shareholder the austrian firm victory industriebeteiligung ag called an extraordinary general meeting where it replaced virtually all of the group s management team . this also saw thomas limberger appointed as the new unaxis ceo . the new management team succeeded in reducing losses massively in 2005 and expressed a desire to abandon the abstract company name unaxis and bring back a well established company name from the past . in 2006 the russian oligarch viktor vekselberg acquired a substantial share in the company . at the annual general meeting in may 2006 a suggestion that oerlikon the name of the village where werkzeugmaschinenfabrik oerlikon was originally founded be used as part of the company s name was approved . rheinmetall reacted strongly against the use of the abbreviation oc because of the potential confusion with its subsidiary oerlikon contraves whose abbreviation is also oc . unaxis was renamed oerlikon formally oc oerlikon corporation ag with effect from the beginning of september 2006 . naming disputes edit the renaming of unaxis was delayed due to various objections from rheinmetall and its subsidiaries . when oerlikon contraves was sold in 1999 the then oerlikon b hrle secured the right to continue using the protected name contraves as in contraves space . nothing was agreed regarding oerlikon however since it is the name of an actual location oerlikon was a village that became a district of zurich in 1934 and so appears in the names of several dozen companies . for these reasons for legal purposes the company oerlikon officially refers to itself as oc oerlikon corporation and has only trademarked the new oerlikon wordmark and logo . at the beginning of september 2006 the media started referring to the company primarily as