Bata (Group)

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BATA BRANDS S.à rl, Luxembourg

logo
legal form GmbH
founding 1894
Seat Lausanne , Switzerland
(Headquarters)
Luxembourg , Luxembourg
(Registered)
Number of employees 30,000
Branch Shoes
Website Bata International

Bata ( original Czech spelling Baťa [ ˈbatʲa ]) is a large manufacturer of shoes . The headquarters of the company, which was founded in Moravia , is now in Lausanne , although the company is registered as a limited liability company under Luxembourg law in Luxembourg . The group employs over 30,000 people, has 40 production facilities in 26 countries and operates 4,600 shoe stores. There are four sales regions: Bata Europe based in Lausanne , Bata Asia Pacific-Africa based in Singapore , Bata Latin America based in Mexico City and Bata North America based in Toronto .

history

Beginnings

The Baťa shoe factory was named “T. & A. Baťa ”was founded on August 24, 1894 by Tomáš Baťa and his siblings Antonín and Anna in the Moravian city ​​of Zlín (then in Austria-Hungary ). Antonín and Anna retired from the management of the company a year later, leaving Tomáš in sole responsibility. After Antonín's death in 1908, Tomáš took over the company completely.

With the introduction of factory production and the first delivery to the retail trade, Baťa revolutionized shoe production, which had previously been limited to small one-man workshops.

In 1909 the company began exporting its products and expanded to Europe, North America, Asia and North Africa within a few years. Baťa was one of the few companies that was able to meet the rapidly increasing demand for military boots during the First World War . The factories abroad were organized in such a way that they could operate independently of the parent company and thus adapt to the market needs of the individual countries.

Baťa in Czechoslovakia

Baťa headquarters in Zlín

The rapidly growing company had a decidedly social awareness for the time, had settlements built around the factories for the workers and provided school education and welfare institutions. These settlements include:

Around 1930 Baťa rose to become the world market leader. In 1932 Tomáš Baťa died in a plane crash (attempted take-off in fog) and his half-brother Jan Antonín Baťa became CEO.

The Czechoslovakia was up to the occupation by the German Empire in 1939, the center of the group's activities. In addition to shoes, Baťa also produced tires for the Barum brand , toys and plastic fibers, among other things .

After Czechoslovakia was broken up on March 15, 1939, Jan Antonín Baťa was arrested, but soon released. He fled with his family. After a short stay in the USA, they settled in Brazil . He rebuilt the group from the foreign parts. Jan Antonín Baťa also founded several cities, among them: Bataiporã , Bataguassu , Batatuba , Anaurilândia and Mariaopolis .

In 1945 the Czechoslovak part was nationalized. For this purpose, a show trial was organized, in which the court had fully acquitted the CEO Jan Antonín Baťa, who had been accused of collaboration with the National Socialists. So two other “proofs of guilt” had to be quickly constructed that led to “conviction”.

The company was named Svit (German: Lichtschein ) and the communist government tried to suppress all memories of Tomáš and Jan Antonín Baťa and their achievements. The Baťas were portrayed as ruthless capitalists who exploited their workers for higher profits. The parent company in Zlín acted as a competitor to Baťa under the name Svit as until bankruptcy .

International new beginning

Bata Shoes Head Office in Toronto

The son Tomáš Baťas, Tomáš Jan Baťa or Thomas J. Bata (1915–2008), started his own business in Canada as early as the Second World War . Actually, he should have managed the branch there. During and after the Second World War, the family was entangled in protracted and judicial disputes over the company's inheritance for decades. Jan Antonín Baťa died in 1965 and Tomáš J. Baťa built and expanded the Baťa concern.

Baťa building (1929 by architect Ludvík Kysela) on Wenceslas Square in Prague

After the Velvet Revolution in 1989, Tomáš Jan Baťa visited Czechoslovakia. In December he received a warm welcome from the people and the government. He was negotiating a restitution. However, he could not take over the nationalized parts in the group, he bought back some of the remains of the original company. He founded Baťa as , this time primarily as a sales organization for the products that are now manufactured in low-wage countries . Although Baťa as is mainly a sales company, it has a small factory in Dolní Němčí and a shoe museum in Zlín.

In 2001, Thomas George Bata , the founder's grandson, became the new CEO.

The Baťa family and the group are very committed to society, especially in Canada. The Bata Shoe Museum is located in Toronto . Thomas J. Bata generously supported Trent University in Peterborough , the university library there was named after him "Thomas J. Bata Library". The Bata Foundation supports cultural and charitable purposes.

The main street of the city of Zlín and the university there ( Univerzita Tomáše Bati ve Zlíně ) are named after the company's founder Tomáš Baťa.

Company in Switzerland

The following Bata companies are registered in the Swiss commercial register:

  • Bata Brands Sàrl, Luxembourg , Lausanne branch - Purpose: Prize et gestion de participations (acquisition and management of participations).
  • Bata Schuh AG / Chaussures Bata SA , today in Pratteln - Purpose: Trading (retail and wholesale) with shoes, shoe components, clothing and accessories of all kinds; the company can operate shoe repair shops and departments for foot care and orthopedics, establish branches and subsidiaries, participate in other companies, acquire, encumber, manage and sell real estate and trade in securities.
  • Bata Schuh Stiftung / Bata Shoe Foundation , St. Moritz - Purpose: Administration and use of the foundation's assets and income, to promote the manufacture and sale of footwear and related products in all parts of the world, mainly through that of Thomas Bata sel called industrial group, hereinafter referred to as Bata Schuh Organization (BSO), through financial support of individual companies striving for this purpose, research work, personal training, etc., as well as for the promotion of scientific, cultural, educational, artistic and philanthropic companies and activities, especially in Switzerland, in the broadest sense in all their possible forms.
  • Bata Westhold AG , Zurich - Purpose: Advising companies in the Bata Group, conducting financial transactions of all kinds as well as acquiring, managing and exploiting trademark rights.

literature

  • Tobias Ehrenbold: Bata, shoes for the world . Stories from Switzerland. Hier + Jetzt, Baden 2012, ISBN 978-3-03919-256-4 .
  • Eugen Erdély: Thomas Bata . A cobbler conquers the world. Interna, Bonn 2004, ISBN 978-3-934662-84-1 (reprint of the Kahler edition, Leipzig 1932).
  • Kerstin Gust: A Utopia of Modernity: Zlín . revisiting Bata's functional city. A book by Zipp, German-Czech cultural projects, an initiative of the German Federal Cultural Foundation. Ed .: Katrin Klingan. Jovis, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86859-034-0 (English, this anthology is based on the symposium "A Utopia of Modernity: Zlín", which took place in May 2009 in Zlín and Prague).
  • Egon Erwin Kisch : Footwear . In: Bodo Uhse, Gisela Kisch (Eds.): Prager Pitaval - Late Reports - Collected Works in Individual Editions II / 2 . Structure, Berlin 1969, p. 415-428 .
  • Ladislava Hornáková, Radomíra Sedláková: Zlín - model city of modernity . Ed .: Winfried Nerdinger . Jovis, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86859-051-7 (On the occasion of the exhibition Zlín - Model City of Modernism in the Architecture Museum of the Technical University of Munich in the Pinakothek der Moderne, November 19, 2009 - February 21, 2010, in cooperation with the National Gallery in Prague and the District Fine Arts Gallery in Zlín).
  • Mariusz Szczygiel : No step without bata . In: Gottland. Reports . Suhrkamp , Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-518-41966-3 , pp. 7–50 (original edition ( Polish ) Wołowiec 2006, Czech : Prague 2007).

Archival material

  • Company archive "Bata Schuh Organization", Zurich administrative center (consignor). Bata Brands, Inventory Designer, 1923–2012. 40 running meters. Location: Basel University Library , Economics Department, Swiss Economic Archives SWA. Description in Calliope

See also

Web links

Commons : Bata  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Entry in the commercial register of the canton of Vaud. Archived from the original ; accessed on December 5, 2018 .
  2. ↑ a b About Bata on bata.com, accessed September 25, 2017.
  3. ↑ Lonely Planet Travel Guide Prague & Czech Republic in Google Book Search
  4. ↑ Kaspar Surber: The cobbler and his satellites. In: WOZ The weekly newspaper 48/2012 of November 29, 2012