Breuninger

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E. Breuninger GmbH & Co.

logo
legal form GmbH & Co.
founding 1881
Seat Stuttgart , Germany
management Holger Blecker
Number of employees 5,500 (2012)
sales EUR 900 million (2018)
Branch Department store / retail
Website www.e-breuninger.de

E. Breuninger GmbH & Co. , founded by Eduard Breuninger in Stuttgart in 1881 , operates department stores in Germany under the name Breuninger . The company positions itself in the upper market segment with a focus on textile goods.

history

The parent company was opened in Stuttgart in 1881 by Eduard Breuninger after he took over the E. L. Ostermayer house (Münzstrasse 1) on the market square. Within a few years, the upper floors of the house were used as additional retail space. In 1888, Breuninger first moved to Münzstrasse 7, but due to a lack of space, he soon used both houses.

By 1903 the old house at Münzstraße 7 was replaced by a new, more spacious building. Five years later a third house (Sporerstraße 7) was built. During the First World War , Breuninger expanded his new office building up to the market square. Despite the difficulties of the global economic crisis , Eduard Breuninger built the new house at Marktstrasse 3 from 1929, designed by the Stuttgart architects Eisenlohr & Pfennig . The inauguration took place in 1931.

After Eduard Breuninger died in 1932, his son Alfred Breuninger took over the company. He joined the NSDAP on May 1, 1933 and in 1935 was appointed by the National Socialists to the Stuttgart City Council and to work in the Central Office for Economics and Tax in the district office for local politics. In 1937, Breuninger expanded the company premises by taking over the Jewish-owned office building on Marktplatz 16. During the war, the company employed foreign forced labor.

During the Second World War , all of the company's houses were destroyed. After a legal dispute and the payment of a compensation payment of 360,000 DM in 1950, the company was able to keep the property on the market square acquired by the Jewish owners. After the death of Alfred Breuninger in 1947 the company management changed to the third generation to Heinz Breuninger. Due to the financial shortage, Breuninger only gradually succeeded in rebuilding its sales rooms.

In 1952, the Breuni bear was introduced and is still the company's mascot today.

In 1968 Heinz Breuninger founded the Breuninger Foundation with his daughter Helga Breuninger .

In the 1960s, Breuninger changed from a pure textiles seller to a full-range supplier. However, since the number of customers coming from outside of Stuttgart to buy from Breuninger was noticeably declining, the company decided in the 1970s to expand outside of the city as well. First, the first Breuningerland was opened in Ludwigsburg in 1973, followed by the Sindelfinger Breuningerland in 1980. The Breuningerland concept consists of a shopping center with other connected retail stores and restaurants. Both Ludwigsburg and Sindelfingen are still the most profitable Breuninger branches to this day. Unlike in the early years, however, since April 1st, 1998, the two shopping centers are no longer managed by the owner, but by ECE Projektmanagement .

In the 1970s, Heinz Breuninger built Willem G. van Agtmael, who had just joined the company, as his successor. After Heinz Breuninger died in 1980 at the age of 60, van Agtmael took over the management. Since then he has been pushing Breuninger's expansion course; shortly after reunification , Breuninger opened branches in Dresden and Leipzig. Since then, nine further branches have followed. In 2004 Willem van Agtmael and the Bonn attorney Wienand Meilicke took over the majority of the company.

Since March 2006, the company has referred to its headquarters in Stuttgart as a flagship store .

Three of the company's branches in Würzburg, Pforzheim and Düsseldorf were closed in 2006. In February 2008 the branch in Dresden was closed.

In October 2013, the second largest Breuninger store after Stuttgart opened in the Kö-Bogen in Düsseldorf . The cooperation with the Sylt restaurant Sansibar and the art collection of North Rhine-Westphalia not far from the famous Königsallee is new .

Since the end of 2017, Breuninger has also been active as a pure online shop in Austria . An in-house developed online shop was programmed for this purpose, which is to replace the existing system. In August 2019, the online shop also went live in Switzerland .

Economic basics

The company is owned by three families: The Meilicke and van Agtmael families each hold 40% of the shares, the Bretschneider / Seidel family holds 20%. Willem van Agtmael was at the head of the three-person management until September 2012. After that, the management committee was expanded to five members and its leadership was transferred to Willy Oergel. The committee reports to an advisory board made up of representatives of the partner families. In September 2017, Holger Blecker took over the management of Breuninger. He has been with the company since 1990 and has been a member of the company's management since 2012.

Sales after sales tax amounted to 756 million euros in 2015. The company employs around 5500 people.

Department stores

Parent company

Breuninger Flagship Store Stuttgart
Interior view of Breuninger Stuttgart
Breuninger men's department, Stuttgart
Women's shoes department, Stuttgart

The parent company has been located on Stuttgart's market square since 1881 . Today it is one of the largest department stores in Germany with 35,000 m² of retail space. The exterior facade of the house is architecturally simple, has gray plastering and shop windows on the ground floor. The outer facade is regularly clad with new motifs and covers an area 65 meters wide and 10 meters high.

In 1989 the main building was expanded to include the Karlspassage. Since then, a public pedestrian zone has passed through the department store, which can be used in the evening after the store has closed, but which is closed at night.

More department stores

Breuninger, Nuremberg
Breuninger in the Kö-Bogen , Düsseldorf

Former department stores

Public relations and sales promotion

Sponsorship

Breuninger has been involved in the second division soccer club VfB Stuttgart for over 70 years . Breuninger is currently a team partner of VfB. Players and officials are always dressed in suits from Breuninger, and every year there is a big autograph session with all VfB players in the Stuttgart headquarters.

In October 2012, prior to the completion of the branch on Königsallee in Düsseldorf , Breuninger became a sponsor of Fortuna Düsseldorf .

Events

In cooperation with the fashion magazines Vogue and Grazia , events take place annually in Haus Stuttgart. The event “Vogue loves Breuninger”, which first took place in 2016, is particularly well-known. In addition to customer campaigns, the latest fashion from designer brands such as Talbot Runhof and Hugo Boss are presented on the catwalks .

For Breuninger Card customers of the highest category ("Platinum Card") exclusive events are offered, for example visits to the opera in Berlin.

Breuninger Card

The Breuninger Card

In 1959, Breuninger was the first German retail company to introduce the Breuninger customer card (now the Breuninger Card ), a customer card with which regular customers could buy on credit with regular billing. Today Breuninger has over a million card customers.

criticism

Disputes about employment relationships

Breuninger is not part of the collective agreement for the retail sector. Depending on the company's needs, 1,800 of the 5,500 employees work between two and forty hours a week in so - called capacity - oriented working hours. In an interview with Stern magazine , then Labor Minister Ursula von der Leyen literally criticized this model as "perfidious": the seller could neither influence the quality of the goods nor the advertising and still bear the risk of the company's capacity utilization. The practice at Breuninger contradicts the case law of the Federal Labor Court of 2005. In the case of flexible employment contracts, this only allows a maximum deviation of 25% upwards or downwards from the agreed working hours. Von der Leyen specifically named Breuninger as a negative example. However, the working model is also common in other companies in the clothing industry, for example at H&M and Esprit .

In 2010 the company had a number of disputes over the works council. A worker who was on the Verdi union list was fired a month later. In the works council elections in May 2010, Verdi's list received five seats. A few months later, the company twice dismissed a female member of this list without notice: she had given a false affidavit to her application for exemption for the works council, and she had tried to eavesdrop on a cell phone during a works council meeting. Both terminations were declared ineffective by the Stuttgart Labor Court in January 2011 .

Fur sale

Animal rights organizations criticized the department store for selling fur and therefore organized numerous protests against Breuninger branches in various cities. In October 2018, Breuninger announced that it would take real fur out of its range from the 2020 spring season and only sell fur products in accordance with the Swiss fur declaration until the changeover .

Others

  • The Breuninger e-shop has its own WebTV. It is the winner of the Intermedia-globe Silver Award 2009 in the WebTV & Infotainment category. WebTV shows videos on fashion trends or presents advertising material in several channels, with the option of buying what you have seen online.
  • Since January 1, 1936, E. Breuninger GmbH has been a company member of VfB Stuttgart 1893 e. V. Since July 1st, 1992 the company has been an official sponsor and advertising partner.
  • Breuninger offers personal shopping at all locations . Specially trained style consultants put together a personal collection of your choice in advance, free of charge, on the basis of clothing size, style preferences, color ideas or the occasion. In the head office in Stuttgart and in the Düsseldorf flagship store, this offer is referred to as a special service .
  • The head office in Stuttgart offers its customers a free shuttle service with which they can be picked up in the greater Stuttgart area and brought back home.
  • The Breuninger Confiserie can also be found in the stores in Stuttgart, Düsseldorf, Sindelfingen, Ludwigsburg, Freiburg and Nuremberg. Since 1951 she has been making her own pralines, cakes and pastries in her own factory in Sindelfingen.
  • Breuninger is the only retail company in Germany to have its own hairdressing business. The women's and men's hairdressing salons Breuninger les coiffeurs are represented with around 130 employees on a total of 1,100 square meters in the headquarters in Stuttgart (since 1962), as well as in the Breuninger countries in Ludwigsburg (since 1973) and Sindelfingen (since 1980) . In addition, les coiffeurs have their own children's hairdressing salons at all three locations.
  • Breuninger already had elevators and escalators in the 1950s.
  • The house was the first department store to offer its customers its own parking garage . The then managing partner Heinz Breuninger brought the idea back with him from a trip to the USA.
  • Since the 1920s, it was mandatory for all employees in the customer area to only wear clothing in white, black and gray. In the meantime, the dress code has been relaxed in some areas.
  • In the basement of the house in Stuttgart - called Breuninger U - cheaper goods were available. Today the women's shoe department is located in this area.
  • From 1971 to 1988 there was the Breuninger-Bad in the attic of the Stuttgart department store on the market square . When digging the construction pit for the department store, the workers came across a spring in 1971. Since it was a fill containing minerals , the department store on the top floor was expanded to include a mineral bath with a 25-meter pool, sauna and fitness area. Breuninger closed the pool in the spring of 1988 due to declining visitor numbers and rising costs. The deficit had grown to more than a million marks a year. The bathroom first became a fitness club , which was also closed after a few years. There is now a restaurant in this area.
  • The basement of the Erfurt house has been rented to the Leipzig delicatessen chain Gourmétage for several years, which sells food and luxury goods there.
  • After the United Buddy Bears made a guest appearance at Stuttgart's Schlossplatz in 2008, Breuninger auctioned a stainless steel bear for EUR 34,000, which has since stood in the central area of ​​the flagship in Stuttgart.
  • In 2012, Breuninger initiated the Animated Fashion Award competition for the first time together with the Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film, which is aimed at young minds from fashion design and animation film. It promotes innovative filmmakers and young filmmakers. The Animated Fashion Award is presented as part of the Stuttgart Animated Film Festival.

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Heller, Michael: Generation change at Breuninger . In: Stuttgarter Zeitung , April 28, 2012, page 1
  2. ↑ Georg Weishaupt: Breuninger boss: "We grew significantly faster than the entire market" In: handelsblatt.com , August 17, 2019. Retrieved September 18, 2019.
  3. ^ Roland Maier: Alfred Breuninger. Nazi councilor and beneficiary of the Nazi regime . In: Hermann G. Abmayr (Ed.): Stuttgarter NS-Täter. From fellow travelers to mass murderers . Stuttgart Schmetterling-Verlag 2009, pp. 290-295.
  4. ^ Roland Maier: Alfred Breuninger. Nazi councilor and beneficiary of the Nazi regime . In: Hermann G. Abmayr (Ed.): Stuttgarter NS-Täter. From fellow travelers to mass murderers . Stuttgart Schmetterling-Verlag 2009, p. 295.
  5. ^ The history of the Breuninger Foundation. Retrieved August 10, 2017 .
  6. ↑ ECE manages the Breuningerländer.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Textilwirtschaft , January 22, 1998@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.textilwirtschaft.de  
  7. ↑ Breuninger closes three houses. In: textilwirtschaft.de. February 24, 2006, accessed September 19, 2011 .
  8. ↑ Breuninger in Düsseldorf Breuni-Bär and Exquisit-Etage. In: faz.net , October 22, 2013
  9. ↑ Denisa Richters: Sylt Sansibar branch in the Kö-Bogen. In: Rheinische Post online , April 23, 2013, accessed on April 24, 2013
  10. ↑ Breuninger supports the NRW art collection. In: rp-online.de , October 11, 2013
  11. ↑ Breuninger starts with its own Shoptech solution in Austria . In: Exciting Commerce . December 7, 2017 ( excitingcommerce.de [accessed on May 28, 2018]).
  12. ^ Maren Meyer: German competition for Globus and Manor. In: tagesanzeiger.ch. August 22, 2019, accessed September 18, 2019 .
  13. ↑ Anne Guhlich : Change of leadership: Blecker is new Breuninger CEO. In: Stuttgarter Nachrichten. June 30, 2017. Retrieved April 25, 2018 .
  14. ^ N + K Lifestyle department store Breuninger. Retrieved August 9, 2020 .
  15. ↑ Training pants down, suits on! ( Memento of the original from November 4, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: vfb.de , July 8, 2011, accessed January 6, 2012 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.vfb.de
  16. ↑ Big rush at Breuninger. ( Memento of the original from November 4, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: vfb.de , September 13, 2011, accessed on January 6, 2012 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.vfb.de
  17. ↑ Breuninger new fashion and lifestyle partner of Fortuna Düsseldorf. In: gutscheincodez.com , accessed February 8, 2013.
  18. ↑ VOGUE loves Breuninger . In: Vogue Germany . ( vogue.de [accessed June 22, 2018]).
  19. ^ Breuninger GmbH + Co. KG: Breuninger Specials :: E. Breuninger GmbH & Co. Accessed on June 22, 2018 .
  20. ↑ a b mih: Breuninger defends himself. In: Stuttgarter Zeitung , April 27, 2010, accessed on April 27, 2010
  21. ↑ Schiermeyer, Matthias: Von der Leyen buttoned Breuninger. In: Stuttgarter Zeitung , April 26, 2012, page 4.
  22. ^ Poggel, Friederike: Verdi attacks Breuninger. In: Stuttgarter Zeitung , June 22, 2010, accessed April 26, 2011.
  23. ↑ Grüssinger, Barbara: Dispute comes to a head. In: Stuttgarter Zeitung , October 7, 2010, accessed April 26, 2011.
  24. ↑ wos: termination is ineffective. In: Stuttgarter Zeitung , January 27, 2011, accessed April 26, 2011.
  25. ↑ Daniela Eberhardt: Department store changes range: Breuninger does without real fur . In: Stuttgarter Zeitung . October 12, 2018 ( stuttgarter-zeitung.de [accessed November 8, 2018]).
  26. ↑ SWR Aktuell: Breuninger does not sell real furs . In: swr.online . ( swr.de [accessed November 8, 2018]).
  27. ^ Website Breuninger - House Stuttgart
  28. ^ Website Breuninger - House Düsseldorf
  29. ↑ Stainless steel buddy bear for Breuninger .