Bunzl

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Bunzl plc

logo
legal form Public Limited Company
ISIN GB00B0744B38
founding 1940
Seat London , UK
management Philip Rogerson
Frank van Zanten
Number of employees 19.006
sales GBP 9.08 billion
approx. EUR 10.15 billion
Website www.bunzl.com
As of December 31, 2018

Bunzl plc is a listed wholesale and logistics group based in London .

Profile of the group

The globally operating group is divided into four different geographical units. The US market accounts for almost half of sales, followed by the British Isles. The continental European headquarters are also located in Amsterdam . There are also branches in São Paulo and Melbourne for the rest of the market.

In 2019, Mawer Investment Management (5.04%) and Massachusetts Financial Services (4.39%) were the largest shareholders.

2007 sales by division and region
Bunzl plc business figures
Year ended Turnover (in millions of pounds ) Profit before tax (£ m) Profit (£ m) Earnings per share (p)
2007 3,582 191.1 130.1 39.8
2006 3,333 189.7 129.4 37.8
2005 2,924 176.7 124.2 35.4
2004 2,438 158.2 141.4 30.7
2004 2,438 200.9 127.4 28.7
2003 2,276 194.6 124.6 27.4

history

The Bunzl Group was formed in 1940 in London from the paper group Bunzl & Biach AG , based in Vienna . It has been listed on the London Stock Exchange since 1957. The group withdrew from Austria in 1979 and left the business there to " Bunzl & Biach GmbH ". Bunzl & Biach GmbH is a majority subsidiary of the Austrian Heinzel Group .

Bunzl & Biach AG

The Bunzl & Biach group goes back to the establishment of the company Emanuel Biach's Eidam, which was founded in 1854 by Moritz Bunzl (1820–1875) in Pressburg . The company operated the " rag trade ", that is, it collected textile waste and processed it for recycling by the textile and paper industry.

Open company from November 15, 1877 , a branch was entered in the commercial register of the Vienna Commercial Court on August 9, 1881 at Porzellangasse  22, Vienna-Alsergrund , which was opened in 1883 under the management of Max Bunzl (1855–1908) and Ludwig Bunzl (1857 –1928), sons of the founder, became the headquarters. The company organized a network extending over Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe for the purpose of the "rag trade", but acquired factories for further processing itself: In 1885 by Julius Bunzl (1858–1921) the artificial wool spinning mill Ignaz Ortmann (from 1888 artificial wool spinning and - Ignaz Ortmann's successor weaving mill ) in the village of Quarb , market town of Pernitz , in 1918 the Wattens paper factory , newly founded: in 1917 a paper factory in Ortmann near Pernitz .

In addition to the company headquarters in Vienna, the location in Ortmann near Pernitz in Lower Austria was of great importance for the group. Here, in the 1920s, the owners had workers' housing estates (1919) and a villa (1914) built for themselves by the important architect Josef Frank .

After the collapse of Austria-Hungary in 1918, subsidiaries were founded in the successor states, and numerous other investments were acquired (including Bossi Hutfabriks AG in Vienna, paper wholesaler Carl Mang GmbH in Vienna, Wolf Blumberg & Söhne AG in Teplitz-Schönau ).

In order to unite this company network under one roof and to facilitate future division of inheritance among the owners, the previously existing companies and companies were converted into corporations in 1936. The Austrian companies as well as the companies with a connection to Austria were brought into the newly founded Bunzl & Biach AG in Vienna. In addition, a Bunzl Holding AG was founded with its headquarters in Zug , Switzerland. In addition to Bunzl & Biach AG in Vienna, Bunzl Holding owned numerous operations and holdings in the successor states of the former Austro-Hungarian monarchy and in the German Empire.

The owners of Bunzl-Holding AG were six brothers who, together with their families, were persecuted and expelled as Jews after the annexation of Austria to the German Reich in 1938, and some were also murdered (Emil Bunzl's son, Hans Bunzl, a composer, was in the Dachau concentration camp murdered).

The Bunzl & Biach AG emerged in 1936 from the transformation of the company Bunzl & Biach and Ig. Ortmann's successor in a stock corporation. All shares were owned by the Zug-based Bunzl-Holding AG . It had factories in Ortmann, Gmeingrube and Wattens. The following were produced: synthetic wool, synthetic cotton, silk, crepe, glassine and fine papers, cigarette paper in sheets and bobbins, bandage wadding, wadding and hats, wood pulp and cardboard. The machine park included 9 paper machines, 4 cardboard machines, 2 wood grinders with 8 presses, 2 wood stoves. The company employed about 1,500 workers and 300 salaried employees. She also dealt with the trade of rags (rags) of all kinds and paper waste, with the washing, refinement and sorting of rags and waste, and finally with the trade of cotton and cotton waste, wool and wool waste.

In 1935/36 the Lenzinger Papierfabrik-Aktiengesellschaft was acquired by the Bunzl family and the company became part of the interests of Bunzl & Biach AG, Vienna.

The Bunzl & Biach AG group was "aryanized" in 1938 by the Oesterreichische Kontrollbank für Industrie und Handel ( Austrian Control Bank for Industry and Commerce ) and renamed Kontropa Continental Rohstoff und Papierindustrie Aktiengesellschaft in September 1941 . Members of the board of directors of the Kontrollbank now sat on the Kontropa supervisory board and controlled the business, including above all the lawyer Walther Kastner , who tried above all to prevent the company from being acquired by "Reich German" (i.e. non-Austrian) interested parties. The control bank had only been set up as a rescue company, which acquired companies in the context of the "Aryanizations" and - mostly at a profit - resold them, but was not supposed to operate them permanently. However, since no suitably financially strong interested party could be found in Austria, a bank consortium (consisting of the largest commercial banks Creditanstalt , Länderbank and the private banks Schoeller & Co. and E. v. Nicolai) finally took over the shares with the intention of distributing them to the public .

Bunzl plc

In 1940 Martin, Hugo and Georg Bunzl founded a group for cigarette filters in Great Britain under the name "Tissue Papers Limited" . However, under the influence of the war, the company did not develop particularly well. After the end of the war, the Bunzl & Biach Group was taken over by the previous owners again in 1947 as part of restitution proceedings , but not merged with the British company. The plant in Lenzing, which was greatly enlarged during the Nazi regime - "Aryanized" by Thüringische Zellwolle AG - was divided as part of a provision settlement. One part of the Bunzl-Holding AG was given back in 1949 ( Lenzinger Zellulose- und Papierfabrik AG ), the other part continued to exist independently as Zellwolle Lenzing AG . In 1969 the two Lenzing companies were reunited.

The lawyer Walther Kastner (professor for commercial and securities law at the University of Vienna from 1964), who, as deputy director of the Kontrollbank, had played a key role in organizing the "Aryanization" of the Bunzl & Biach group from autumn 1938, was also involved in the restitution negotiations and was sitting from 1957 to 1975 on the Group's supervisory board. He was also involved in the 1979 sales negotiations as an advisor to the Bunzl family when the Austrian plant was sold from the family's assets.

In 1952 the name was changed to "Bunzl Pulp & Paper Limited". The company expanded to South Africa and in 1954 the American company "American Filtrona" was founded. As the population became more aware of the cancer risk associated with smoking, global filter production increased significantly. Bunzl was able to establish itself as a supplier for Imperial Tobacco and the Gallaher Group and thus increase filter production by a factor of twelve.

In 1974 the company received the state award and has been allowed to use the coat of arms of the Republic of Austria in business transactions ever since .

literature

  • Franz Mathis: Big Business in Austria. Austrian large companies in brief presentations. Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, Vienna 1987, ISBN 3-486-53771-7 , pp. 76–77.
  • Peter Melichar: Aryanizations and liquidations in the paper and wood sector. In: Ulrike Felber (among others): Economy of Aryanization . Part 2: Economic sectors, industries, case studies . (= Publications of the Austrian Commission of Historians, 10/2). Oldenbourg, Vienna ( inter alia) 2004, ISBN 3-7029-0516-2 , pp. 279–741, here: pp. 311–335 (“Bunzl & Biach”).
  • Walther Kastner : My life - not a dream. From the life of an Austrian lawyer. Orac (et al.), Vienna (approx. 1982), ISBN 3-85368-903-5 .
  • Finanz-Compass Austria. Compass-Verlag, Vienna 1957–1975.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b 2018 Annual Report , at www.bunzl.com , accessed on January 1, 2020
  2. ^ History - Bunzl plc , accessed on March 12, 2014
  3. ↑ Commercial court announcements. (...) Bunzl & Biach. In:  Local-Anzeiger der "Presse" , No. 221/1881 (XXXIV. Year), August 12, 1881, p. 12, top left. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / maintenance / apr.
  4. ^ Franz Mathis : Big Business in Austria. Austrian large companies in brief presentations . Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, Vienna 1987, ISBN 3486537717 , pp. 76–77.
  5. ↑ 4th part: Municipalities of Lower Austria 357. Pernitz . In: Austrian official calendar online . Jusline (Verlag Österreich), Vienna 2002–, ZDB -ID 2126440-5 .
  6. ↑ Josef Frank. In: Architects Lexicon Vienna 1770–1945. Published by the Architekturzentrum Wien . Vienna 2007.
  7. ↑ Central sheet for entries in the Austrian commercial register 1936, page 651 (direct link via ZEDHIA on p. 651 )
  8. ↑ Peter Melichar , "Aryanizations" and liquidations in the paper and wood sector, in: Ulrike Felber et al., Economics of "Aryanization". Part 2: Economic sectors, industries, case studies (= publications of the Austrian Historical Commission 10/2), Vienna 2004, pp. 279–741, here pp. 311–335.
  9. ↑ Compass 1937, Financial Yearbook Austria, Austria-Hungary, page 1035 (direct link via ZEDHIA on p. 1035 )
  10. ↑ Official part. (…) Commercial register. (...) District Court Wiener-Neustadt. In:  Völkischer Beobachter. Combat sheet of the National Socialist movement of Greater Germany. Vienna edition , No. 272/1941 (LIV. Volume), September 29, 1941, p. 5 (unpaginated), column 8 below. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / vob.
  11. ↑ Finanz Compass Austria 1969, page 829 (direct link via ZEDHIA on page 829 )
  12. ↑ cf. Walther Kastner , My life - not a dream. From the life of an Austrian lawyer, Vienna undated (1980); Financial compass. Austria, Vienna 1957–1975

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