History

The Uničov engineering facility was created as a branch plant for Škoda Plzeň 1948–1950, launching production on 29 April 1950. In 1953, the facility gained independence, and since then has also borne the name, Uničovské strojírny. Over the next 40 years, the company developed and produced earth moving and mining machines, especially for the needs of the North Bohemian coal basin. Since 1970 in Uničov we have designed and produced over 100 rare giant bucket wheel excavators, most of which still work reliably. The typical yellow-colored bucket wheel excavators extracted a total of over 4.7 billion cubic metres of overburden and 3.2 billion cubic metres of coal for almost four decades. The company has also designed and produced dozens of stocking machines, hundreds of kilometres of belt conveyors and thousands of shovel excavators.

In 1993 as part of coupon privatisation, the state company was transformed into a private company with the new name UNEX. In 1998 it gained a new majority shareholder, Bancroft Eastern Europe Fund, which in 2003 entered into an agreement on the sale of the entire ownership interest to the company's managers. In 2005, ARCADA Capital became one of the UNEX shareholders.

That year, the company acquired manufacturing capacity of Moravské železárny in Olomouc – die forging and foundry complementary to the Uničov manufacturing plant. This allows UNEX to offer a comprehensive range of castings in terms of sizes and material..

Due to insufficient capacity for manufacturing of cranes, booms and welded structures, UNEX expanded to Slovakia in 2007. In doing so, UNEX acquired key assets of Vihorlat Snina in East Slovakia and more than doubled the capacity of its engineering operations.

The current total production capacity of UNEX is up to 39,000 tons of castings, 9,000 tons of forgings and 24,000 tons of welded parts and structures per year. We provide unique manufacturing capabilities: more than 250,000 square meters of Production and warehouse space in three specialized, cooperating plants.

In the last ten years, UNEX has invested more than CZK 1.5 billion into the modernisation of production technology and has become a modern engineering and metallurgical company that produces products ranging from 50 grams to 120 tons and delivers products by the agreed deadlines and in the demanded quality.