When customers told Henrik Hagens his company would be shut out of the Chinese market, he did something bold: he built a factory there.

STØVRING, Denmark — The call came during the financial crisis, when most manufacturers were cutting costs, not adding them. A major customer had a blunt message for Henrik Hagens, the owner of Hagens A/S, a spring and metal parts manufacturer tucked away in a small northern Danish town: open a factory in China, or lose the business.

It sounded like a trap. Building a factory from scratch on the other side of the world would cost millions, and this was 2008 — not the moment most executives were eager to gamble.

But then more customers said the same thing. China’s government, they warned, was preparing to prioritize domestic suppliers in its next five-year plan. The window was closing.

“We weren’t completely sure,” Hagens recalls, “but when you’re talking about a five-year plan in China, they carry it out.”

He built the factory.

A different kind of globalization

That decision marked the beginning of a geographic expansion that has since carried Hagens A/S — a supplier of precision springs and metal components to the automotive, medical, industrial and agricultural sectors — into Sweden, Hungary and southern Denmark, in addition to its original base in Støvring and a facility in Glostrup.

The strategy has produced consistent multi-million kroner profits at a time when European manufacturers have struggled to compete with lower-cost producers in Asia. The company now employs roughly 100 people in Denmark and 245 worldwide, and Hagens says he hopes to reach half a billion Danish kroner in annual turnover within a few years.

The formula is less about scale than it is about positioning. Rather than competing on price — a race Hagens says European manufacturers cannot win — the company has deliberately pushed toward high-value, high-quality products that require the kind of precision tolerances the automotive industry demands.

“If we had only competed on price, we would have been pushed out of the market within a few years,” he says.

The local presence strategy

What makes Hagens’ approach distinctive is the discipline behind its acquisitions. Rather than buying large or ambitious targets, the company focuses on acquiring well-run factories, typically with around 50 employees, that can be quickly integrated and are close to what Hagens already knows how to do.

“We don’t experiment,” Hagens says. “Companies have to be able to stand on their own feet, and we have to know both the products and the customer types. Otherwise the integration becomes too heavy.”. Especially when it comes to niche productions like clockwork springs, and other custom types of springs.

The Chinese factory was an exception — it had to be built from scratch because no suitable acquisition was available at the time — but it also gave the company something valuable: full control over quality and manufacturing standards in a market where cutting corners is common. That control has helped Hagens establish a foothold in China’s fast-growing automotive and medical sectors.

Watching for signals

Hagens describes himself as a kind of global merchant, constantly reading the signals of where markets are opening and where they are closing.

His attention has turned to the United States, which he considers attractive because of the size of its domestic market. But he has pressed pause for now. The political climate, and the uncertainty around trade policy, has made the ground feel unsteady.

“The market is attractive,” he says, “but we need to know the rules of the game before we invest.”

He is watching other shifts too. Europe, he argues, can neither match Asian wage levels nor protect its industry through political means the way China does. China itself is growing more expensive as wages rise. India, he says, is positioning itself as the next global manufacturing hub.

“India wants to be the world’s factory after China. If that happens, the balance will shift again.”

For European manufacturers, he believes automation is the only durable response — though at Hagens, it has not come at the expense of jobs. Employment has grown alongside the machines.

“We have to keep growing,” he says, “but not at any price. We have to make money every year.”