Our history
1986
Company Foundation
1989
POLO Handels GmbH was founded in 1986 as a sales and marketing arm for the paper groups Mayr-Melnhof and Frantschach – today Mondi for the far East market. And since we started exploring unknown Asian markets, just like famous traveller Marco Polo, we decide to go on this long journey with a name Polo.
1990
Slovenia
New Focus
Political changes in Europe lead to a new focus for Polo and since that time the strategy has been to become a leading sales, marketing and service organisation in the paper and packaging industry in CEE.
1990
Beukema
1991
1991
Hamburger
Expansion in CEE markets
The expansion of Polo in the markets of CEE starts by opening a first office in Slovenia covering all ex-Yugoslavia markets. Since then, offices in Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Ukraine and Baltics were successfully established.
1992
Arctic paper
Weig
1992
Poland
1993
Czech rep.
Bulgaria
1994
Hungary
1995
Cooperation with Iggesund
POLO start a cooperation with Iggesund – the premium paperboard company for purposeful solutions. Cooperation with this member of the Holmen Group and Europe’s leading manufacturer of high quality virgin fiber paperboard was ongoing for more than 20 years.
1995
Kappa
1995
Mondi Coating
1995
Russia
Romania
1996
Croatia
Ukraine
1998
ESKA
1998
Slovakia
1999
Bosna and Herzegovina
China
2002
OLI
Vollenda
2005
Baltics
2005
R. Bosch GmbH
2005
& Extension
2006
Kanzan
Polo decides to diversify and extend its business by selling process and packaging machinery to national and international brand producers in CEE. Furthermore, Polo starts to offer spare parts and field service to the new customer base.
2010
Houdijk
Sapal
2012
Herma
2012
Bauermeister
Lantech
2013
Parenco
2014
Arranow
Rotzinger
2015
CPS
Norden
2017
Slim Alu
2018
Koehler
2019
HDG
2019
Take over
2020
Klabin
Polo takes over the former Bosch PA Russia sales and service organisation in Moscow and now employs more than 90 people in 12 countries. Polo continues to provide excellent paper and machinery products to its customers as well as new sustainable packaging solutions as an alternative to plastics.
2021
Kama
2021
TG packaging
R. Deckert
Klenzaids
2022
Kipas
2022
Ownership change
A change in the ownership of the Polo shares has taken place in 2022. Mr. Johannes Binder-Krieglstein and Mr. Wilhelm Massegg took on the 37 % of shares of the trust of Mr. Thomas Prinzhorn. This will strengthen POLO in respect to flexibility and speed and enable to cope with changes on the markets, our customers and suppliers and digitalisation.
2023
Smurfit Westrock
2022
Machinery solutions
In response to evolving customer and market needs, POLO has dedicated itself to expanding its portfolio, unveiling a new catalog featuring state-of-the-art technology from new our suppliers, and proudly launching our first-ever POLO machine line; greenline, designed exclusively for paper packaging.
With its greenline, we also introduce:
- Service
- Spare parts
- Co-packing possibilities
2024
CT-Pack
2024
ROVEMA