Page 39: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (January 2013)

WWW.MARINELINK.COM 39Nine Belgium industrialists met on October 26, 1912 in the ofÞ ce of Notary Public Fobe in Ghent for reason of founding an engine man-ufacturing plant. The investors embodied past and future. One of them represented the company ONGH-ENA, which manufatured gas engines of an older design. He decided to stop production of these engines in favor of the new revolutionary diesel engines of Rudolf Diesel. The new company started its work under the direction of the engine manufaturer Georg Carels, who was a good friend of Rudolf Diesel, as well the two investors Marcel and Richard Drory. The name of the new company: AN- GLO BELGIAN COMPANY. ABC started to produce diesel engines in the power range from six to 40 hp, as well as a two-cylinder marine engine delivering 45 hp. ABC was already demonstrat- ing three different engine types (1E, 2EM and 2D) at the World?s Fair in Ghent on September 28, 1913. Already before World War I, ABC started to export en- gines to Australia and Russia, and business begain fairly well for the company. New developments, including the DX engine series, and bigger power output were intro-duced and quickly found customers in both the marine business as well as in the stationary power segment. The 1970s were tumultuous times for the company, but ulti- mately it survived. It was then that one of the most impor- tant markets, the former Belgian Congo, was lost because of their war of independence and the new nation Zaire did not have the Þ nances for new engine purchases. But at the same time ABC developed a complete new engine: the DZC-series, with the goal of selling 100 engines per year. By the end of the 1970s, the collapse of the enterprise was imminent, as the company needed fresh investment. While a number of qualiÞ ed investors existed, the infu- sion of capital came with the demand that the existing management leave. While there was substantial resis- tance, eventually the old management team was replaced with new management which came out of the Belgian fabricant Pauwels, the building contractor Batibo and the Belgian Shipbuilding Association. Simultaneously, they changed the company name into Anglo Belgian Corporation, better known simply as ABC. Soon after this also a pro-government investment compa-ny, GIMV, participated and considerably increased the ba- sic capital. The Þ rst experiences with the new DZC engine was not successful, requiring a new round of investment. But a capital increase was rejected by investors, and they transferred their shares to the Luxembourger Fam- ily Holding OGEPAR, which to this day still own 90% of the shares, with the remaining 10% belong to ABC. Along with the new fresh capital Ogepar again exchanged the entire management, and today management is in the hands of the General Manager Tim Berckmoes. The existing engine series have been reworked and fur- ther developed to dual-fuel engines, and today?s engine portfolio consist of the DX and DZ-series with a power band of 138 to 4,000 kW. The applications are separated into three segments: main drives for inland waterway ships, seagoing ships, tugboats as well as Þ shery boats. Onboard gensets are available in the power range from 128 to 3,562 kW. In addition to the marine business, on- shore stationary gensets and locomotive business rounds out the company?s main markets. It?s worthy to note that, for the time being, the biggest and strongest Diesel-Hydraulic-Locomotive in series production, the VOITH Maxima 40CC, is equipped with an ABC engine of type The fathers of the new DL-series (l to r): Lieven Vervaeke (Head of Engineering), Tim Berckmoes (General Manager ABC), Jean-Pierre Props (Area Sales Manager), Jean- Christoph Van Acker (Sales Manager), Diederik De Lentdecker (Financial Director). (Photos: PPM News Service Pospiech Maritim) MR #1 (34-41).indd 39MR #1 (34-41).indd 391/2/2013 1:17:03 PM1/2/2013 1:17:03 PM