When the Italian company Ariston took over the Bavarian heat pump manufacturer Wolf in 2022, the market was still booming. Company boss Paolo Merloni on outdated heating systems and errors in the energy transition.
When the Italian heating and heat technology company Ariston was founded on the Adriatic in 1930, it was still about scales; later the company sold hot water tanks. Today, the grandson of the company founder, Paolo Merloni, is banking on the energy transition business: at the end of 2022, he took over the Lower Bavarian heat pump manufacturer Wolf and the air conditioning technology specialist Brink for around one billion euros. The political dispute over the heating law and the crisis in the construction industry have not made business any easier, but Merloni is an optimist.