Baumax

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bauMax AG

logo
legal form Corporation
founding 1976
resolution 2015
Reason for dissolution Takeover by Obi, Hagebau and Bauhaus
Seat Klosterneuburg
management Michael Hürter, CEO
Number of employees 6200 (2014)
sales 1.13 billion euros (2013)
Branch retail trade

former Baumax branch in Dornbirn
former Baumax branch in Baden
Inside view of the branch in Presov

The Baumax AG (own spelling bauMax ) was an Austrian hardware store chain. It was founded in 1976 by Karlheinz Essl senior in Klosterneuburg and most recently operated 105 stores in Austria , the Czech Republic , Slovakia and Slovenia . The annual turnover in 2013 was 1.13 billion euros. The last financially troubled company was broken up in 2014/2015 at the instigation of the creditors.

history

In 1958, Karlheinz Essl, the son of a grocery wholesaler from Carinthia , stayed in New York City to study the self-service principle of American supermarkets there. There he met his future wife Agnes Schömer, daughter of a Klosterneuburg building materials dealer. Even before the wedding, his future father-in-law Fritz Schömer saw him as a suitable successor, and he joined the father-in-law's business. In 1975 the company management went to Essl. He saw the opportunity to completely reorganize the operation and convinced suppliers and employees to start using the self-service concept.

In 1976 the first hardware store was opened in Kindberg, Styria , at that time under the name Hobbymax . In 1978 the first Baumax followed in Mauthausen . In the mid-1980s, the company became the market leader in Austria. The plan that was then made to expand to Bavaria, however, was revised after Karlheinz Essl and his son Martin recognized the need to catch up in these countries and thus their opportunity shortly after the fall of the Iron Curtain in the face of crumbling facades in the former Eastern Bloc countries. To finance the expansion course, the company went public in 1990 for a total of almost 15 years and earned 900 million schillings (65 million euros). In 1992 the first stores were opened in what was then Czechoslovakia and Hungary , and two years later in Slovakia. The DIY chain was one of the first trading companies to expand into the former Eastern Bloc countries. At the height of this expansion around 2010, the group operated 160 branches with over 9,000 employees in nine countries, namely in Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia , Romania , Bulgaria and Turkey .

In 1999 Martin Essl became Chairman of the Board of Management and Senior Karlheinz Supervisory Board. Karlheinz Essl got involved in the day-to-day business of the company management and made all the decisions. He was obviously overwhelmed by the size of the company and did not trust his son or his employees with much confidence.

As the competition caught up, profit margins eroded. In the absence of own financial resources, the expansion activities were increasingly financed by loans. When the global economy was shaken by the financial crisis from 2007 and sales fell in many markets, the Baumax Group fell into an existential crisis. In 2011 it showed a loss of 57.2 million euros and in 2012 a loss of 126 million euros - with sales of 1.2 billion euros. Probably under pressure from the creditor banks, the board of management consultants Roland Berger commissioned a restructuring concept, the contents of which were made public by 2014.

Accordingly, the group was in debt to over a billion euros at this time. Every third branch worked in deficit, and half of them were not expected to improve in the foreseeable future. In particular, many of the foreign subsidiaries would not make any profits for years. Without countermeasures, there was a risk of insolvency in early 2014 at the latest .

According to the paper mentioned, the causes of the Baumax Group's crisis are not primarily due to the unfavorable macroeconomic development, but are based on mistakes made by management. There is an "unclear target group orientation with an uncoordinated price and range policy" that has developed due to "deficits in the management organization". The company is too aggressively priced and has too small a range with too few own brands . In addition, the branch sizes are very inconsistent. In Austria, small and medium-sized sales areas dominated, while abroad very large areas were operated, which would make it difficult to implement a group-wide uniform management and branch concept. Many locations are also poorly chosen in terms of traffic. Furthermore, the structure of the company did not grow with its size and was therefore not very efficient; 20 years after the expansion abroad, there was still no central inventory control system and no central purchasing department.

Despite the financial difficulties, the existing strategy was largely adhered to and further branches were opened, most recently in Turkey in particular. After further high losses in the 2013 financial year, the Essl family had to withdraw from the company despite previously injecting liquid funds. The company fell to the creditor banks, which ordered the break-up of the Baumax group.

To this end, the subsidiaries in Romania and Bulgaria were sold in 2014, the branches in Turkey (2014) and Hungary (2015) closed. Insolvency proceedings were initiated for the Croatian subsidiary in 2015. The properties in Hungary were sold to the furniture store chain XXXLutz . At the end of August 2015 it was announced that the German DIY chain Obi will take over a total of 70 Baumax branches, 49 of them in Austria, 14 in Slovakia, two in Slovenia and five in the Czech Republic. The property developer Supernova from Graz will buy 40 branches and rent them to Obi. The purchase price should be around 200 million euros. At the same time, around 1,100 employees were registered with the Public Employment Service for resignation , emphasizing that this would be a maximum number. Six locations are to be taken over by four shareholders in the Hagebau chain .

The company exploiter Lehner GmbH from Scharten takes over the inventory - shelves, forklifts, panel saws, shopping carts etc., but not the hardware store merchandise - and clears the 150,000 m² sales area of ​​the Baumax stores within five weeks by the end of November and estimates the transport volume at 280 semi-trailers .

The last stores in Austria closed on October 30, 2015.

The Baumax website is owned by Obi as of February 2016.

In February 2016, Baumax AG was renamed bx Alpha AG.

Branches

country First market Original number of markets Status (as of August 29, 2015)
AustriaAustria Austria 1976 65 49 locations sold to Obi / Supernova, 6 to Hagebau and 1 to Hornbach
Czech RepublicCzech Republic Czech Republic 1992 24 5 locations sold to Obi / Hornbach, 18 to Merkury Market
HungaryHungary Hungary 1992 15th Closed on February 26, 2015; Properties were sold to the XXXLutz Group
SlovakiaSlovakia Slovakia 1994 14th Sold to Obi
SloveniaSlovenia Slovenia 1995 3 2 locations sold to Obi / Supernova
CroatiaCroatia Croatia 2000 7th Insolvent
RomaniaRomania Romania 2006 15th Sold to Adeo
BulgariaBulgaria Bulgaria 2008 8th Sold to the investor Haedus JSC
TurkeyTurkey Turkey 2010 7th Withdrawal from Turkey in 2014

Web links

Commons : Baumax  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c baumax.at - General , September 12, 2014.
  2. ↑ a b bauMax annual financial statements 2013 . baumax.at, June 23, 2014.
  3. ↑ a b c d Christina Hiptmayr: bauMax: The Essl family in front of the ruins of their life's work. In: profil.at. August 22, 2015, accessed August 24, 2015 .
  4. ↑ a b c Miriam Koch, Angelika Kramer, Peter Sempelmann: Baumax - A family drama in many acts. format.at, April 3, 2014, accessed on September 20, 2015 .
  5. ↑ a b c Christina Hiptmayr: Baumax: The secret restructuring plan . In: profil.at. April 5, 2014, accessed September 20, 2015 .
  6. ↑ Christina Hiptmayr: Baumax: Can the DIY chain still be saved? In: profil.at. March 31, 2014, accessed September 20, 2015 .
  7. ↑ a b c d e f Baumax sales fix: Obi and Supernova take over the helm. In: the standard. 29th August 2015.
  8. ↑ If it is necessary to buy Baumax hardware store things, hurry because it will be closed (Hungarian)
  9. ↑ dismay! Baumax also closes. (Hungarian)
  10. ↑ bauMax: 1,100 terminations “maximum number”. ORF Lower Austria, September 1, 2015, accessed on September 2, 2015.
  11. ↑ BauMax break-up is progressing. orf.at , September 25, 2015, accessed on September 25, 2015.
  12. ↑ The last act: bauMax is cleared out. ( Memento from October 27, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) In: Wirtschaftsblatt. October 26, 2015, accessed October 29, 2015.
  13. ↑ Baumax website in February 2016. Accessed on February 21, 2016 .
  14. ^ Wiener Zeitung: Firmenmonitor.at // bauMax AG. In: www.firmenmonitor.at. February 23, 2016, accessed December 3, 2016 .
  15. ↑ Radio Prague - Company Merkury Market takes 18 Baumax stores in the Czech Republic. In: www.radio.cz. January 2, 2015, accessed January 27, 2016 .
  16. ↑ bauMax closes 14 locations in Hungary - XXXLutz takes them over. ( Memento from January 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) In: Wirtschaftsblatt . January 21, 2015, accessed March 14, 2015.
  17. ↑ Croatian bauMax subsidiary insolvent. on: ORF . March 13, 2015, accessed March 14, 2015.
  18. ↑ bauMax Bulgaria sold to local investor. ( Memento from September 28, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) In: Wirtschaftsblatt. September 11, 2014, last accessed October 29, 2015.