[1985]

 

As of January 1, 1985, 40 years after its foundation by Karl Hilfiker and Max Baumann, Hans Leuthard purchased Hilfiker & Co. and continued to operate it under its new name HILBA-Geräte AG at the existing headquarters in Zurich.

His vision that even a small company could build universal planetary and worm gear units on a small scale on its own proved to be successful relatively quickly. Although such drives were already available on the Swiss market in some cases, they were only available from abroad and in catalogued standard versions.