Utsch AG

Erich Utsch established the company in 1961 as a family business. The first embossing machine was a modified wine press. 1969, after his father’s death, Manfred Utsch took over. In 2001, the Erich Utsch KG became a public limited company whose majority shares are in family ownership. Today Erich Utsch AG is active in more than 130 countries, with nearly 25 joint ventures worldwide and employs almost 400 people allover the world.[4]

In 1988, UTSCH confirmed his role as a technology pioneer by introducing a new, environmentally friendly and extremely durable dry roller coating technique for license plates called “hot stamping”.

From 1995 on, UTSCH developed extensive security concepts for license plates. By using laser-codes, holograms, graphics or coats of arms, license plates turned into national high security documents.

In 1998, Utsch developed and built the worldwide largest automatic production facility for license plates for the Italian state in Foggia where all license plates are centrally produced. In 2002, Utsch introduced the first windshield label with transponder technology as an electronic identification document. Between 2008 and 2009 Utsch realized the three biggest orders in value of over 30. Mio. € in the Arab world.[5]

In 2012, the company produced more than 50 million vehicle license plates worldwide.[6] In the same year Erich Utsch AG and J. H. Tönnjes GmbH & Co. KG (the two world leaders in security license plate technology) founded a joint venture: UTI (Utsch Tönnjes International).[7] In December 2018, Erich Utsch AG sold its shares in UTI to Tönnjes. [8] At the same time, Erich Utsch AG acquired a majority interest in the Australasian Group, LicenSys Australasia Pty Ltd..[9]

In September 2016, the sale of the majority shareholding owned by Manfred Utsch became known. In future, it belongs to a Swedish and Australian group, represented in the negotiations by Ian George and Anders Eriksson. Manfred Utsch stated that the sale will support the business continuity and safe the jobs at the location Siegen in long term. He himself will only perform an advisory task in the future.[10]

Since the company’s foundation the core business has been the production of vehicle license plates including manufacturing tools and production facilities. Already in 1965, Utsch launched its first mechanical embossing press. In 1975, the first “Automatic Embossing Press” was introduced to manufacture vehicle license plates in large quantities in a computer-controlled and fully automatic process.

The 2013 launched upress is able to allow biometric login, optic control and continuous documentation of the workflow. The upress closes the gap between manual and automatic production and hinders wrong printings by accident or by purpose.

With a slightly downscaled version, the upresslight, UTSCH is opening up an economical way for smaller embossing firms to introduce networked technology.

Next to this classical engineering, UTSCH today offers complete system solutions for companies, public authorities and entire states, coverings all aspects of production, personalization, registration and identification in a modular and highly customizable manner.

UTSCH has successfully developed license plate frames with a variety of finishes to allow license plates to be fitted on vehicles from virtually all brands and manufacturers without screws.

UTSCH has interests in nearly 25 companies worldwide [11]The most important are:

• Ketner-Utsch A/S in Denmark
• Utsch International Ltd. in Ireland
• LicenSys Pty Ltd. in Australia
• Utal Sp.z.o.o. in Poland
• UTSCH ESPAÑA S.L.U. in Spain

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