ULM, Germany – Last year, business developed positively for the German motor oil and additive specialist LIQUI MOLY. Sales for this group of companies sales rose by 24.1 percent to almost 290 million euros ($388 million USD) and the number of employees rose by 38 to 500.

To accommodate future growth, the company says it is set to begin an investment program totaling around 30 million euros.

"Sales and revenue are important so that the people in the company have work and can make a living. But the fantastic figures for the balance sheet are only achieved thanks to another number, which does not appear on any balance sheet and therefore doesn't receive the attention it actually deserves: the number of employees," said Ernst Prost, owner and CEO of LIQUI MOLY.

Being able to provide people with work and therefore a future means the most to him, Prost said.

"We do not focus on figures, but on people," he stresses. Last year, 38 people found a new professional home at the company. A total of 500 people now work for the LIQUI MOLY group.

Export business is growing
About 40 percent of sales of the LIQUI MOLY brand are generated outside Germany, the company said. In 2010, this amounted to 72.6 million euros, which is 17 million euros more than in the previous year, an increase of 31 percent.

"In the future, export business will be able to develop to a much greater extent than domestic business," said Prost. In the beginning, the export business was limited to a small number of European countries such as Hungary, former Czechoslovakia and Switzerland. In the mid-1990s, it experienced a strong development boost, he said.

"We have now increased the sales achieved in 1996 tenfold," says Prost. Today, every second liter of motor oil sold is exported.

The company exports to more than 90 countries. New markets on the LIQUI MOLY map are Ghana, Nigeria, Tajikistan, Brunei, Cambodia, Vietnam and Senegal. Prost said he sees China, Japan, the U.S., Mexico, Spain and Scandinavia as perspective markets for the year ahead. He said his most important market entry for the next five years is Brazil.

LIQUI MOLY produces some 4,000 products and services ranging from motor oils and additives to vehicle care products and service products. The products are manufactured exclusively in Germany.