Olyslager, a Dutch firm that provides lubricant data for the oil industry, recently declared independence with a management buy out byManaging Director Louis Ploegmakers and Sales Director Harald Oosting. Terms of the purchase from EurotaxGlasss were not disclosed.
The company bills itself as the worlds largest data supplier for the oil industry, with an extensive client base of local and international oil companies. Olyslager provides original equipment manufacturer lubrication data which are published on CD, in book form, on web sites and through its own database program, Olyslager Lubrication Information System (LIS).
Since 2002, Oosting explained,Amersfoort, Netherlands-based Olyslager waspart of Swiss company EurotaxGlasss, which in turn was owned by an investment company. EurotaxGlasss focuses on selling marketing and maintenance data for the car industry.
Lubricants data was not theircore business, so that was one of the reasons they didnt have a problem selling the company to us, Oosting told Lube Report. Going independent makes us more flexible than in the past. We can make some steps also for the future, because we want to develop all the tools and modules. Founded in 1947,the companywill expand its business further in coming years with new products and services for the oil industry and its distributors, he said. The buy out became effective Jan. 1.
EurotaxGlasss retains its subsidiary Eurotax Netherlands B.V. which is active in the parent companys core business areas of vehicle specification, residual value management, and repair and damage calculation. According to a EurotaxGlasss announcement, Eurotax Netherlands B.V. will share Olyslagers offices in Amersfoort until the end of February, after which both companies will relocate to new premises. EurotaxGlasss said the individual companies will continue to work closely together by using each others information in their respective solutions which they offer to clients.
According to Oosting, Olyslagers lubrication database is unique, based on specifications and data obtained from manufacturers. Its a database of OEM specifications, which consists of over 380,000 unique components in it, in all categories, he explained. That includes automotive, industrial production, and industrial manufacturing sections, covering a wide variety of vehicles along with things such as compressors and lift trucks.
The database covers about 2,200 manufacturers, providing information on vehicle identifications, capacities, intervals and additional information on used components. In the program, the customers – oil companies and their distributors – have the possibility to link their company products to the OEM specifications, he said. This enables them to create a lubricants report for a specific vehicle, and see OEM specifications and the different recommended products, capacities and things such as recommended oil change intervals. There is also a fleet module meant for making complete surveys for a lubricants report for an entire fleet, said Oosting.
Customers who subscribe to the LIS program receive quarterly updates via CD-ROM with updates for all the OEM data. We have a lot of subscribers in Europe, but also in Asia, America and South America, he added.
EurotaxGlasss Group was formed by HM Capital following the acquisitions of Glass’s Information Systems Ltd in 1998 and Eurotax AG in 2000. The company is headquartered in Freienbach, Switzerland. In May 2006, European private equity house Candover acquired EurotaxGlass’s Group.