COMO, Italy — The new owners of Baumann Dekor are banking on building their business 500 percent in the next five years according to Ajay Bikram Singh, co-principal. Singh put up his life savings in order to purchase Baumann Dekor (debt free) with a silent partner about one year ago, he says. Singh and the silent partner each own 50 percent of an offshore holding company, which owns Baumann. Max Baumann has returned as sales manager since last May. He is one of 56 people working at the mill. Baumann was one of the original owners of the company but now is an employee. “We are focused on increasing the selling effort for Baumann, Singh says. “Baumann Dekor has always been production driven.” Singh was interviewed by F&FI at the last Proposte Fair in Como to find out how life is going in the fast lane. The assets and intellectual property were purchased from the previous Austrian owners who bought the company out of bankruptcy five years ago. “We have recreated the entire brand of Bauman Dekor in the past year; the look has changed. The collections and the handwriting has changed,” he adds. The product line is made in Gmund, Austria as before in the same mill he bought with the acquisition. The products are offered in the Middle East contract market and in the USA and Europe. Singh, an agent (operating under the name of Warps + Wefts), distributor and contract specialist with its own collection under the label VFM Design is based in Dubai. VFM as the distributor brand has three offices with 30 employees based in Dubai, India and Austria.  As an agency, Warps & Wefts represents all lines in India. “We knew of Baumann Dekor for many years because it was a competitor to our principals,” he says. Together with his wife, an architect named Veenu Kanwar, Singh, born in Himachal, just north of Punjab, India, is well known in the Dubai contract/hospitality circle. Singh and Kanwar married in 1992 and moved to Dubai. “We knew of the high brand value represented by Baumann Dekor and we wanted to go beyond the Middle East market,” he says. Right now, Singh is looking for a U.S Managing Director for Baumann Dekor USA, a separate subsidiary with an independent rep network in order to call on the American hospitality trade. ”I want someone who has fire in his or her belly,” he says.