It was not easy to make products calling for foreign raw materials in Finland in the 1950s. Because of post-war rationing and the shortage of foreign exchange, there was a constant battle for raw material import licences, and at times the plastics factory had to close down for lack of raw materials. There were probably quite a few people in the company’s timber business who looked down their noses at the small plastics department and felt very sceptical about its development potential.
It was already clear at a very early stage that if a plastics company was to be successful it had to have a wide range of products. Consequently, Wiik & Höglund both bought up other companies and invested in its own operations. In 1954 the company bought up the Vaasa firm Lars Berts, which made plastic profiles. At the same time it started making plastic-coated electrical cables and wires. The cables turned out to be a marginal product, however, and production was discontinued in 1958.
More important for the future, though, was the launching of polyethylene film manufacture in 1954, and a crucial step forward was taken in 1955, when the first polyethylene pipes were supplied to customers. PVC hose came onto the scene in 1956. Oy Wiik & Höglund Chemicals Ab, as the plastics company was called from 1953 on, was the first in Finland to buy equipment to make expanded polystyrene sheets. The product was marketed under the brand name Styrox, a name that is still used today in Finland for all products made from this raw material.
The product range expanded still further when the Jakobstad company Forss & Govenius was bought up by Wiik & Höglund. The company made primarily foil and plastic floor coverings. At the same time its talented technical expert, engineer Karl-Jan Govenius, also joined Wiik & Höglund.
Autumn 1957 marked a turning point in the history of Finnish industry using imported raw materials. Importing was deregulated and instead of a shortage of plastic raw materials there was actually an abundance. Competition got keener. Now was the time to develop new products and look for fresh markets.
The rapid expansion of the product range meant resources were excessively stretched. In the 1960s Wiik & Höglund established their own special line in the plastics business. In 1961, after intensive R & D, the company was able to make 400 mm pipes. At that period the manufacture of really high-diameter pipes was considered pretty well a technological impossibility. In 1964, when the plastics factory engineers presented their 600 mm pipe — the first in the world — it caused an international stir. The 600 mm pipe had been developed through intense experimentation, where the company’s engineers had frequently defied all known concepts and struck out across unexplored territory. A unique welding machine designed specially for joining pipes together was developed at the same time and also patented.
The large-diameter pipes were developed in association with the raw material supplier, Farbwerke Hoechst AG, but Wiik & Höglund designed its own production machinery. Only a year later, it put an 800 mm pipe on the market, and in April 1966 a 1000 mm model. By 1969 the maximum diameter had risen to 1200 mm, and 1976 witnessed the launching of a 1600 mm pipe.
Wiik & Höglund thus won an international name as a manufacturer of heavy-duty piping. Since its breakthrough in 1964 the company has always been one step ahead of its rivals, and even today KWH Pipe is one of the few manufacturers who can make 1600 mm PEH piping. KWH Pipe now uses new, patented production technology for the manufacture of Weholite lightweight pipe in dimensions over 3000 mm in diameter.
But before the company could go international, it had to reinforce its standing on the home market and also take a decision about the future of its timber business.
The competition in the piping business, especially with Oy Nars Ab, occasionally made production unprofitable. Indeed, Oy Nars Ab had been hit by an acute economic crisis in the early 1960s and had been taken over by Kansallis-Osake-Pankki bank. Edvin Wiik and Emil Höglund now received an offer to buy the company, at a point when Wiik & Höglund’s economic position was somewhat strained due to several unprofitable years in the timber sector.
After protracted negotiations with the bank, Oy Nars Ab was bought out in April 1963. The synergy benefits were obvious. As well as making pipes, Nars had a strong standing as a manufacturer of calendered products and its marketing organization was almost identical to Wiik & Höglund’s. These combined resources produced a powerful unit with considerable growth potential. In its day, the take-over was one of the most important rationalization measures in the Finnish plastics industry.
A decision to wind up the timber business was made in the same year as the Nars acquisition. Between 1963 and 1966 the timber trade was gradually wound up and the ships were sold. Wiik & Höglund has since been a purely manufacturing enterprise, though it retained a toehold in the timber trade through its appreciable holding in Oy Wilh. Schauman Ab. Emil Höglund was a member of the latter’s Board in 1945-1973, and chairman of the Board from 1968-1973.
The take-over of Nars made Wiik & Höglund Finland’s biggest plastics company, employing 506 people. It could not build its future on the home market alone, however. Growth and profitability were to be found in exports.
To get onto the Scandinavian market Wiik & Höglund set up a sales company in Umeå, Sweden, in 1962. Forenede Plast A/S started up the same year in Oslo and Forenede Plast A/S in 1964 in Roskilde, Denmark. Despite these investments in exporting, the home market remained the most important sales territory. As recently as 1965 exports still accounted for only 13% of turnover. 1969 can be considered the breakthrough year, when the Vaasa factory started exporting its polyethylene pipes.
As a result of its development work in the 1960s, Wiik & Höglund received offers of cooperation from several multinational producers of plastic raw materials, including Phillips Petroleum, Exxon, Du Pont of Canada, Mannesmann, Mitsui, the French company Rhone-Poulanc and the Belgian company Petrofina.
Collaboration with Hoechst led to the establishment of a pipe factory called Europlast Rohrwerk GmbH in Hamburg in 1966. This proved a disappointment, however; it recorded large losses and was closed down in 1977. In contrast, Wiik & Hoeglund (Canada) Ltd. was a great success. The factory was built in Huntsville, Ontario, in 1967 in cooperation with Du Pont, which assumed responsibility for sales and service. The two companies collaborated until 1988.
In the mid 1960s both Emil and Edvin had reached normal retirement age and in 1966 they withdrew from day-to-day management, retaining their seats on the Board. Tor Wiik was appointed Managing Director and Håkan Smeds Deputy Managing Director.
For his services to industry, Emil Höglund was granted the honorary title of ‘Commercial Counsellor’ in 1951 and that of ‘Mining Counsellor’ in 1972. Edvin Wiik was given the title of ‘Industrial Counsellor’ in 1964. Both continued to be actively involved in the company’s affairs after retirement. Edvin Wiik died in 1971, and Emil Höglund two years later.
At the end of the 1960s Finnish plastics companies worked together quite closely and set up a number of sales companies to market building plastics, expanded polystyrene, polyethylene pipes and sacks. These companies continued to operate right up to the mid 1980s. Wiik & Höglund played an active role in all their operations.
Another outcome of such collaboration was that Wiik & Höglund and Oy Finlayson Ab jointly bought up a rival polyethylene pipe company called Muovitehdas Oy Ulvila in 1969. Muovi-Ulvila became a Wiik & Höglund subsidiary in 1986, during the restructuring of the pipe business.
A number of large international piping projects in the 1970s led to the setting up of a projects department, later to be turned into WH Pipe International. Pipe projects in Brazil, Iraq, South Korea and Thailand increased the company’s familiarity with these markets. A mobile extruder was developed for such project work, and used to make pipes on site.
Restructuring and concentration on certain products continued in the ‘80s, while the company continued to expand abroad.
The expanded polystyrene and floor tiles and coverings side of operations was sold. Profile manufacture was demerged to form a separate company called Oy WH-Profil Ab, with the Danish company Primo Plast as the other owner.
Factories making polyethylene pipes were set up in Denmark, Thailand, Canada, and in 1990 in Malaysia and Portugal.
Industrial piping was added to the production programme when Oy Muotekno Ab, Oy Sul-Mu Ab, Laurolon Oy, Plastilon Oy and the French company Sipap Pipe Systems S.A. joined the Group.
As a result of restructuring in the Group, the whole of pipe manufacture was transferred to KWH Pipe, which currently (2004) accounts for around half of consolidated turnover.