History

1906

Establishment of the Swiss Machine Tool Factory Oerlikon with 150 employees. The new company absorbs the machine tool department of the then existing Machinery Manufacturing Company Oerlikon.
 

1907

The new Factory building on the Birchstrasse is acquired.
 

1923

Acquisition of Swiss Machine Tool Factory Oerlikon shares by Magdeburger Machine Tool Factory in Germany. The new company is called Machine Tool Factory Oerlikon.
 

1924

The firm acquires the patents and the staff of the Machinery Manufacturing Company in Seebach (Zurich) which is engaged in the manufacture of anti-aircraft and armored vehicle defence weapons.
 

1924-1927

Emil Georg Bührle, then the leading staff member of the Magdeburger firm, acquires step by step the majority of Machine Tool Factory Oerlikon. In 1936, the rest of the shares come under the ownership of the Bührle family.
 

1936

Establishment of Contraves AG in Zurich as an office for the study of technical/scientific problems in the area of anti-aircraft techniques. Start of the development of Fire Control Units. The company name is derived from the Latin ("contra aves" = against birds).
 

1944-1946

Progressive takeover of Contraves AG shares by Bührle.
 

1972/1973

New structuring of the Bührle group through the combining of individual firms into a single corporate group. Thus are created among others the corporate group Oerlikon Bührle Defence (with Machine Tool Factory Oerlikon) and Oerlikon Bührle Contraves (with Contraves AG).
 

1990-1992

Machine tool works Oerlikon Bührle AG and Contraves AG merge into a single company, Oerlikon Contraves AG.
 

1993

Independence of the ammunition division creates Oerlikon Contraves Pyrotec AG as a 100-percent-owned subsidiary of OCAG.
 

1999

Oerlikon Bührle Holding sells Oerlikon Contraves to Rheinmetall DeTec AG.
 

2004

Oerlikon Contraves currently has about 1,800 employees worldwide and generates sales of around 310 million euros.