1985: Establishment of GEORGIOS GHIKAS & SONS company with simultaneous construction of privately owned facilities
1985-1988: The company is starting to be supplied by domestic suppliers.
1988: The company proceeds to the purchase of a forklift, which makes it one of the few companies in the area with this functional advantage.
1989: The company makes its first import which would be the beginning of all this successful effort to connect the source with the final consumer.
Company maturation and changes
1989-1994: In the next few years the company’s imports increased and this led to a decrease in domestic purchases. The many trips of the owners around the world in search of new sources with better quality wood offered contributed to this.
1995: That year, with the departure of the leader and patriarch of the family, Georgios Ghikas, the company was renamed to NIKOLAOS GHIKAS & CO. Since then, Nikolaos and Sotirios Ghikas have continued the family tradition in the field of timber.
1996: The company is equipped with a kilner which helps it significantly in the drying process.
Over the years the course of the business was particularly upward. This fact led the company to find new warehouses. That is why in 2001 the company rented new larger warehouses.
New challenges
However, the company’s expansion plans did not stop there, correctly predicting the increase in demand for timber from the inextricably linked construction industry, which in the coming years marks a completely upward trend in our country. So, the company decides to buy a plot of 26 acres in the location where it is currently located.
In the following years the company gained a larger market share and more customers throughout Greece but also abroad and more specifically in the Balkan countries and Cyprus.
As a result of this successful course up to that point was the transition to the new era with the construction of new privately owned, state-of-the-art, by European standards, building facilities with a total area of more than 10 acres. The construction lasted from 2009 to 2010 and since then the headquarters of the company is located there.
The process of this transition, however, was particularly demanding because it coincided in time with the first stages of the spread of the economic crisis in our country.
From the economic crisis onwards
The recent economic crisis has negatively and to a large extent affected the business sector of our company, given that the wider construction sector of the country was irreparably affected.
But this was not an obstacle for the continuation of the operation of our company, on the contrary it was a strong incentive for further improvement in our demanding field of activity.
Today, the company has gained a reputation in the field of timber by holding a large market share. The vision of the partners, and above all of the next generation, is the further development of the company inside and outside the borders. A pillar of this vision is the inheritance of experience, moral values and specialized knowledge about wood to the new generation. Also, the new generation does not stop traveling around the world in order to find additional resources to improve the quality of the wood that the company markets, to satisfy even its most demanding customers.