Following the publication in our 7 August 2013 issue of the news that Uniross Batteries had re-entered the local market for industrial batteries, we were contacted by the company’s founder and former managing director, Dennis Polack, to correct an inaccuracy in the article.
To quote the paragraph in question: The South African Uniross opened in 1967, followed a year later by Uniross in France, but there was no business link between the two until the 2003 acquisition of the former by the latter. To this day, nobody has been able to explain how the entities came to share a name and a common market, other than sheer coincidence.
According to Polack, it is incorrect that there was no business link between the companies prior to 2003 and the same names are not a sheer coincidence. “Christophe Gurtner, the MD of Uniross France, is a good personal friend of mine and he accompanied us on various trips to South Africa,” he explains. “We purchased product from his company and set up a separate division to service the consumer market.
“We also worked closely with Uniross France on some large projects and were successful in getting a major order for 35 000 battery packs from the IEC for polling stations. The packs were manufactured by Uniross overseas and supplied by Uniross South Africa.”
Polack was kind enough to provide us with the following detailed history of both the local and overseas Uniross companies. We regret the publishing of inaccurate information and wish to thank Mr Polack for setting the record straight.
History of Uniross Batteries (Pty) Ltd. – (South Africa) and Uniross Batteries SA. – (France)
Europe
1). Uniross Limited was incorporated in July 1968 as a shell company in UK. It was purchased by an electronics company and renamed Uniross Batteries Limited in December 1979.
2). Uniross Batteries Limited became the agent for a leading Japanese sealed lead acid battery company Yuasa. They were extremely successful in Europe and at the peak were taking 10% of the total production of Yuasa.
3). Uniross Batteries Limited wanted to enter the South African market and approached Crest Components to set up a joint company to market Yuasa batteries in South Africa. I was the MD of Crest Components and in October 1980 set up a company called Uniross Africa (Pty) Ltd. for this purpose.
4). Due to an extremely bad decision (another good story on its own) a serious conflict arose between Yuasa and Uniross in UK and shipments to UK were halted immediately.
5). Suddenly both Uniross Batteries Limited and Uniross Africa did not have a product to market. Uniross Batteries Limited went into the consumer rechargeable market.
6). Uniross Africa which had never received any product, cut its ties with the UK company and focussed on the industrial and military markets.
7). Uniross Batteries Limited (UK) experienced financial problems and initially sold 75% to Hawker Siddley and 21% to SAFT UK. The managing director kept 4%. Eventually SAFT UK purchased all the shares and the UK Uniross was then 100% owned by SAFT UK. The Head Office of SAFT is located in France and the Uniross operation was then transferred to France. Under SAFT control it did not perform well. There was a management buyout and Christophe Gurtner became the new owner. Under Christophe’s management Uniross flourished in the consumer market and grew rapidly to become a major supplier of rechargeable consumer batteries
South Africa
1). In 1967 Bateman Alkaline Batteries (Pty) Ltd. was registered.
2). In 1969 Bateman Alkaline Batteries (Pty) Ltd changed its name to Nickel Cadmium Storage Batteries (Pty) Ltd.
3). In 1969 Nickel Cadmium Storage Batteries (Pty) Ltd. was purchased by S.A. F. T. and it’s name was changed to S.A.F.T (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd.
4). In March 1986 Uniross Africa (Pty) Ltd. purchased S.A.F.T (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd. The name of S.A.F.T (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd. was changed to Uniross Batteries (Pty) Ltd. and Uniross Africa (Pty) Ltd. was de-registered. In effect at that stage, Uniross Batteries was actually the old S.A.F.T (South Africa) which was originally Bateman Alkaline Batteries (Pty) Ltd and for this reason the registration date of Uniross Batteries was then 18th January 1967.
5). Uniross Batteries (South Africa) became the leading supplier of Industrial and Military Nickel Cadmium, Nickel Metal Oxide and Lithium batteries in South Africa. Uniross Batteries South Africa had more than 100 employees and a large portion of the manufactured product was exported.
Uniross Batteries (France) purchases Uniross Batteries (South Africa)
1). Uniross Batteries in (France) was keen to enter into the Industrial and Military markets to acquire the manufacturing expertise and existing customers of the South African Uniross and to have a local base from which to market their own product range.. In April 2003, it was decided to sell the South African Uniross Batteries. The French Uniross created a South African shell company called Tradebush Investments No. 181 (Pty) Ltd. and purchased the assets and equipment from the South African Uniross. Tradebush Investments was renamed as Uniross Batteries (Pty) Ltd. and simultaneously to avoid any conflict, the original South African Uniross was renamed as Soupol (Pty) Ltd. and was subsequently de-registered.
Tradebush Investments No. 181 (Pty) Ltd. was registered in 2003 and technically this is now the correct incorporation date of the current Uniross Batteries (Pty) Ltd.
I understand that in 2009, Eveready Industries (India) acquired a controlling block of 80% of the shares of the Uniross holding group.
To the best of my knowledge the above facts are correct.
© Technews Publishing (Pty) Ltd | All Rights Reserved
printer friendly version