Plastics Machinery

The average Swiss Plastics Machinery company is valued at 4.0 - 5.5× EBITDA on a statutory (tax-based) basis and 5.0 - 7.5× EBITDA in actual deal transactions. The spread between statutory and deal multiples represents a key arbitrage opportunity for informed buyers. The current market trend is stable, with an arbitrage gap rated as medium. Actual valuations depend heavily on recurring revenue share, customer diversification, management depth, and equipment modernity.

Key valuation drivers include: Technically deep positions in injection moulding, closure systems, temperature control and process instrumentation that are hard to replicate at any price point; Estimated 82% export share, above the tech-industry average, giving access to markets far larger than the domestic base. Factors that can compress valuations include: The Swiss customer base is contracting: NOGA 22 employment fell from 22,493 in 2022 to 21,364 in 2024, and 14.7% of establishments have gone since 2012; Capital-goods demand is deferred first in a downturn, and capacity utilisation at 81.1% sits well below the 85.6% long-run average. Deal multiples typically range from 5.0 - 7.5× EBITDA, but actual prices vary significantly based on customer concentration, management quality, revenue predictability, and geographic reach within Switzerland's 26 cantons.

Roughly 850 companies are active in Swiss plastics machinery, mould-making and processing equipment, but that is an industry estimate rather than a register count — BFS STATENT reports only at NOGA division level, and the machine builders sit in division 28 while their Swiss customers sit in division 22. STATENT 2024 records 1,968 machinery establishments with 79,054 employed, and 709 rubber-and-plastics establishments with 21,364 employed. The customer side is the one to watch: division 22 employment fell from 22,493 in 2022 to 21,364 in 2024, a loss of 1,129 jobs against establishments falling only 1.0%, and 14.7% of its establishments have disappeared since 2012.

Succession in Swiss plastics machinery is being decided against a customer base that is getting smaller. NOGA division 22 — rubber and plastic products, where Switzerland’s processors sit — held 22,493 employed across 716 establishments in 2022 and 21,364 across 709 in 2024. Losing 1,129 jobs while losing only seven establishments means the firms that remain have been cutting, and a seller’s trailing figures may describe a business that has been trimmed to fit rather than one built to grow. What transfers cleanly here is anything with an installed base and a replacement cycle: temperature control units, process-monitoring sensors, melt pumps, spare parts programmes. What transfers badly is a mould shop whose value is one master toolmaker’s judgement, or a machine business whose orders depend on relationships with a handful of processors. The sector’s most instructive example runs the other way: Corvaglia started as a closure developer in 1991, bought a toolmaker in 1997 and built a Mexican plant in 2004, turning tooling capability into a global systems position — the transferable version of the same skills. Deal multiples for the sector typically run 5.0 - 7.5× EBITDA.

Six trends define the sector in 2026: (1) The Domestic Customer Base Is Shrinking — Swiss plastics processors sit in NOGA division 22, and BFS STATENT counts 709 establishments with 21,364 employed in 2024, down from 22,493 in 2022 — 1,129 jobs lost in two years against establishments falling only 1.0%. (2) Machinery Exports Are Down, But Not Collapsing — Swissmem records machinery exports down 2.1% in H1 2026. Read alone that is a poor number; read against the published subsector lines it is a mild one — printing machinery fell 20.4%, precision tools 2.8%, while electrical machinery rose 5.5% and metals 4.2%. (3) Capacity Utilisation Signals Deferral, Not Loss — Tech-industry capacity utilisation stands at 81.1% in Q2 2026 against a long-run average of 85.6% (2015-2025). (4) Recyclate Processing Needs New Machines, Not Upgrades — Processing recycled polymer imposes demands standard machines were not designed for: wider melt-viscosity variation, higher contamination tolerance, tighter process monitoring to hold part quality. (5) Value Sits Beside the Machine, Not Only In It — Mould-making, temperature control and process monitoring are separate businesses with their own economics and their own aftermarket annuities. (6) Tariffs Reach Machinery Through Its Materials — The US tariff sequence — 39% in August 2025, a 15% cap in November 2025, Section 232 duties of 10-50% on steel, aluminium and copper from April 2026, and Section 301 duties up to 12.5% from 24 July 2026 — hits plastics machinery on two sides.

The principal acquisition risks are: (1) Continued contraction of the domestic processing base removes the reference installations that support export sales; (2) US tariff escalation — 39% in August 2025, a 15% cap in November 2025, Section 232 duties of 10-50% on metals from April 2026 and Section 301 duties up to 12.5% from 24 July 2026; (3) Swiss franc strength compressing franc margins on the EU sales that make up 57.1% of Swiss tech exports. Buyers should conduct thorough due diligence on customer concentration, regulatory compliance, and key-person dependencies. Deal multiples of 5.0 - 7.5× EBITDA may be discounted for firms with elevated risk profiles.

The typical cost breakdown for a Swiss Plastics Machinery firm is: Raw Materials (steel, alloys, polymers): 28%, Personnel Costs: 30%, Purchased Components (electronics, drives): 15%, Equipment Depreciation: 7%, Energy & Utilities: 4%, Other Operating Costs: 8%, Profit Margin (EBITDA): 8%. Bought-in components and electronics lead the cost base — drives, controls, sensors, hydraulics — and their pricing is exposed to US Section 232 duties of 10-50% on steel, aluminium and copper in force since April 2026, which reach machine builders through frames, platens and tooling rather than through the finished machine alone. Engineering and assembly labour is the second block, and in mould-making it is effectively the whole product. The line that decides margin resilience is the recurring one: spares, service contracts, temperature units and sensor replacement continue through a weak capital-goods cycle when new machine orders do not, which is why the recurring share of revenue is the first figure to establish in diligence rather than the last. These benchmarks are important for buyers assessing operational efficiency and margin improvement potential post-acquisition.

Switzerland's main Plastics Machinery clusters are: (1) Glarus (GL) — A small canton with an outsized machine-building presence, anchored by NETSTAL Maschinen AG in Näfels, which has built injection moulding machines here since 1945. (2) Thurgau / Eastern Switzerland (TG, SG) — The mould-making and process-equipment belt. Corvaglia Mould in Eschlikon grew from a 1991 start-up and a 1997 toolmaker acquisition into a global closure-systems supplier; Wittmann’s Swiss operation sits in Kaltbrunn; HB-Therm and Regloplas both build temperature control units in St. Gallen. (3) Zurich / Winterthur (ZH) — The instrumentation and components corridor. Kistler Instrumente in Winterthur supplies the cavity-pressure and process-monitoring systems that govern moulding quality, and Maag Pump Systems in Oberglatt builds melt pumps and pelletising equipment. (4) Aargau and the Mittelland (AG, BE, SO) — A dispersed base of mould-makers and precision component suppliers serving the injection moulding industry, alongside Arburg’s Swiss entity in Münsingen. Regional concentration affects valuations, as companies in established clusters benefit from supplier ecosystems, specialized talent pools, and industry networks.