Franz Haniel & Cie.

Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH
legal form	GmbH
founding	1756 / June 22, 1917 (GmbH)
Seat	Duisburg , Germany
management	Thomas Schmidt ( Chairman of the Board of Management ) Doreen Nowotne ( Chairman of the Supervisory Board )
Number of employees	18,824 (2018)
sales	4,683 million euros (2018)
Branch	Holding
Website	www.haniel.de

Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH is a family-owned investment holding based in Duisburg-Ruhrort , which, as a strategic management holding company , controls a diversified portfolio. The company, which describes itself as a family equity company, is one of the largest companies in Europe that is still 100% owned by a family ( the Haniel family ).

In the ranking of the 500 largest family companies in Germany by the Wirtschaftsblatt magazine , the holding company currently ranks fourth.

history

Origins & establishment

Haniel's first residential and commercial building in Ruhrort , built in 1756. Franz Haniel lived here from 1779 to 1868

The forerunner of the company was founded in the " Packhaus " in Ruhrort , which was built by Franz Haniel's grandfather Jan Willem Noot . The year 1756 is used as the year of foundation, in which Frederick the Great signed the long-term lease for the property.

Jan Willem Noot ran a warehouse for colonial goods in the packing house , which was first run by Jacob (until 1782) and then by his wife Aletta Haniel , née Noot, (until 1797) as a freight forwarder.

Expansion into the metal processing industry

In 1802 their sons Franz and Gerhard became partners in the company, whose shares were divided between the brothers in 1809. From then on, the two brothers ran two separate trading companies. Franz Haniel's own coal and shipping company probably existed as early as 1802. From then on, a large part of his business interests focused on coal.

Another interest was aroused in 1803: Franz Haniel realized that it should be worth owning the two ironworks " St. Antony " in Oberhausen-Osterfeld and "Neu-Essen" in the Essen Imperial Monastery , with which the Haniels had been doing business for ten years . The purchase came about in 1805 together with his brother Gerhard and his brother-in-law Gottlob Jacobi . In 1808 Heinrich Arnold Huyssen brokered the purchase of the third hut, "Gutehoffnung" in Oberhausen-Sterkrade , from Helene Amalie Krupp . In the same year the three huts were merged to form the Hüttengewerkschaft und Handlung Jacobi, Haniel & Huyssen (JHH) , the predecessor of “ Gutehoffnungshütte ” AG (GHH). With the construction of steam engines and ships, locomotives, rails and bridges, the YHH made an important contribution to the industrialization of the Ruhr area. This was the first German coal and steel company.

Shipbuilding and mechanical engineering

In 1809 the maternal inheritance was divided between the two brothers. The coal trading company and the forwarding company based in Ruhrort went to Franz and were henceforth operated under his name. Ironically near Ruhrort, the steamship Caledonia of the son of the inventor of the steam engine, James Watt Jr., suffered an engine failure. The connecting rod that was damaged in the process was then repaired at the YHH and aroused Franz Haniel's fascination for steam engines. He tried in England at Watt for a personal insight into his work, but this refused. Nevertheless, in 1819 the JHH built its first larger steam engine with an output of 12 horsepower , and in 1829 the first passenger steamboat produced in its own Jacobi, Haniel & Huyssen shipyard was put into operation. For the construction of the first steamers, Haniel brought mainly Dutch and English shipyard workers to Ruhrort.

In 1830 the first German steamship on the Rhine, the "Stadt Mainz", was launched in Ruhrort. In 1838 the "Graf von Paris", made entirely of iron , was added, and in 1845 the tug "Die Ruhr". An English designer by the name of Nicholas Harvey was also involved in the construction of the steamship ; Franz Haniel tied him to the company by arranging a marriage with his niece Maria Kunigunde Clementine Jacobi. The Liège industrialist family Cockerill also intended to build steam ships on the Rhine. When his son married the daughter of the Cockerill family in 1839, there was no unpleasant competition in steamers on the Rhine.

As early as 1821 Haniel had built its first coke -fired blast furnace in Ruhrort . "Jacoby, Haniel & Huyssen" built in 1830, also a sheet metal rolling mill , then in 1835 another rolling mill and produced in 1840 the first locomotive , the "Ruhr". Various ore mines have been operated since 1838 . A rolling mill for the production of railroad tracks was founded in 1841, but closed again in 1842.

As early as 1820, Haniel was involved in the expansion of the Ruhrort port, initially for the purpose of building its own shipyard, and from 1830 also for planning the Ruhrort infrastructure : the Cologne-Mindener Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft line was completed in 1847. The connection of Ruhrort to this important railway line can be demonstrably traced back to Franz Haniel's commitment.

Breakthrough in underground mining

Haniel had already begun in 1833 with deep drilling to in Essen-Schoenebeck in 1834 first a vertical pit by the force to be impenetrable layer of marl to sink . The aim of the deep drilling was to reach the coal seams. Fatty coal can be baked into coke and then used in blast furnaces. He had the penetrating groundwater pumped out with steam engines . This shaft cost Haniel 100,000 thalers, which all the others and the responsible mining authorities had advised against. With the penetration of the marl layer, a pioneering achievement was achieved in 1834, which soon found imitators. In 1847 he opened the Zollverein colliery in Essen , which began mining coal in 1851 .

Haniel had achieved its goal of supplying its own coal to its smelting works with coking coal, and the tracks of the Cologne-Mindener Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft were so cheap that the coal could be transported from the colliery to Ruhrort at low cost and then loaded onto its own ships in the port for further transport. Franz Haniel thus laid the foundations for the vertical integration of his group.

In 1854, Haniel played a key role in the construction of a ferry connection across the Rhine, the Ruhrort-Homberger railway trajectory , in which the coal wagons were loaded onto ferries using a steam-powered elevator and transferred to the west due to the lack of bridges over the Rhine . The ferries were of course built at Haniel's own shipyard. A lifting tower of the trajectory still exists today in Duisburg-Homberg as a memorial. The trajectory was the reason for Haniel to be the first to deal with a mining project on the left bank of the Rhine: He founded the Rheinpreußen mine , which mined coal until 1990.

Representative of paternalistic capitalism

As a typical representative of a socially committed, paternalistic capitalism , which was later referred to as “ Rhenish ”, Franz Haniel always cared about the welfare of the employees. As early as 1832, Haniel and his Compagnions founded a support fund for local workers , which was supposed to cover them in the event of illness or accident. By 1837, the protection of this fund was extended to all employees of the Ruhrort shipyard. In 1847, Franz Haniel opened another benevolent fund for his company's employees. The YHH also built houses near their mines for the permanent workforce. So in 1844 the Eisenheim settlement in Oberhausen-Osterfeld was created , which gave the miners ' families enough living space as well as space for the goat ("the miner's cow") behind the house, which later became the pigeon fanciers' paradise. The settlement is now a listed building . With almost 3,600 workers, the JHH was the largest employer in the Ruhr area in 1858.

Haniel under Hugo Haniel

After Haniel's death in 1868 his son Hugo Haniel took over the management and ran the business of the newly founded company Franz Haniel & Cie. oHG . After the death of the last co-founder, Heinrich Huyssen, in 1873 the Gutehoffnungshütte in Oberhausen-Sterkrade, a company with 18,000 employees, became a stock corporation with the name Gutehoffnungshütte, Actienverein für Bergbau und Metallbetrieb . The shares are owned by the descendants of the four founders.

Paul Reusch as head of the GHH

For the first time in 1905, the Swabian mining technician Paul Reusch, an employed manager who was not a family member, took over the management of the GHH. He expanded the mining company to include the steel processing industry and mechanical engineering . A new shaft sunk at that time in Oberhausen-Osterfeld got its name: Paul-Reusch-Schacht. During the hyperinflation of 1923 Reusch seized the opportunity to purchase MAN , which increased the workforce to 52,000 people. Ferrostaal , which was founded in The Hague , was also newly integrated into the group from 1923 . In the Great Depression from 1929, GHH halved its workforce. Reusch initially welcomed the takeover of power by the National Socialists and urged Hitler to fill the ministries that are important for the economy with experts instead of party stars. The autobahn construction promoted by Hitler increased the need for bridge construction, and the armament increased sales of diesel engines for ships of the war and merchant navy considerably. During the Second World War , the GHH temporarily employed 4,000 forced laborers . In 1942 Reusch had to resign from the board under pressure from the regime.

The foundation of Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH

The multitude of large and small finished products soon made it necessary to expand the trading company's own logistics . In 1917, in addition to the oHG, which existed until 1929, Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH founded. The old packing house became the headquarters. In 1921, MAN and the Haniel Group bundled their oil interests in equal shares in Oelhag . Part of the shares went to the Atlantic Richfield Company in the 1920s , the remaining shares to the German-American Petroleum Society (DAPG) and Rhenania-Ossag during the Great Depression .

With Johann Wilhelm Welker , the GmbH was given its own general director, who was also non-family and who held this position until 1944. Since then, the law has applied to the Haniel family that family members cannot hold positions in the company. After the First World War, the shipping company for the coal trade was expanded considerably under Welker's management . During the period of National Socialism , Welker was the only chairman of a chamber of industry and commerce who was not a member of the NSDAP . Nevertheless, he also took advantage of the Third Reich's efforts to become self-sufficient : The Rheinpreußen colliery built hydrogenation plants that could be used to produce gasoline from hard coal using the Fischer-Tropsch process . In contrast to other companies, the necessary plant construction was carried out without state subsidies . The green-white station network of Rheinpreußen campaigned with the slogan: "pillars German independence".

Unbundling and structural change

At the end of the war, most of the Haniel ships were sunk in the Ruhrort harbor, the shipping company was largely idle, the industrial plants were bombed and GHH and MAN had lost their important network of foreign branches. Nevertheless, Haniel immediately hired every front soldier who returned home who was a former Haniel employee.

The unbundling at Haniel meant that by 1960 the Haniel family's indirect participation in Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH became a direct investment through the collieries and GHH. The GHH was split into four parts in the context of this process. The bridge construction specialist GHH was quickly asked again, and so the Deutz Bridge in Cologne, which was rebuilt with the participation of GHH, was inaugurated as early as 1948 . At the Berlin Airlift in 1948/49, Haniel delivered 30 percent of the coal that was packed by hand in hundredweight sacks. The business became such a good source of income that there was occasional talk of a new line of business. The forwarding and transshipment operations were also involved.

From 1960 to 2000

Under the leadership of Klaus Haniel , Wolfgang Curtius and Thuisko von Metzsch , Haniel undertook a considerable structural change at an early stage: In the early 1960s, the Rheinpreußen colliery and the associated petrol station network were sold. The company used the proceeds for the entry and expansion of new business areas such as pharmaceutical wholesaling , the transport and storage of industrial waste and the entry into the wholesale and retail chain Metro AG , in which it still holds shares today. In the 1960s, the Haniel family began gradually selling their GHH shares to the Thyssen Group. In 1965, the turnover of Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH 1.096 billion DM. In the 1980s, the last shares in GHH were given. Later the company withdrew from fuel trading, haulage and inland shipping.

Haniel in the 21st century

For Haniel, the beginning of the 21st century was marked by a series of acquisitions and sales of company investments. In 2000, Haniel finally withdrew from inland shipping by selling the majority stake in the shipping company.

In January 2006, the former Mercedes boss Eckhard Cordes took over the post of CEO, replacing Theo Siegert , who had only been in office for eight months and who left his position “for personal reasons”. In the same year, Haniel withdrew from damage restoration with the sale of BELFOR and celebrated the 250th anniversary of the group. In August 2007 Haniel increased its stake in Metro AG under Eckhard Cordes and became the largest shareholder with 34.24% of the voting rights.

In the course of the planned alignment towards an international trading and service group, Haniel sold Xella, the last manufacturing division, to a private equity consortium in 2008. Haniel was one of the main sponsors of RUHR.2010 .

In January 2010 Jürgen Kluge took over the position of CEO of Haniel, and Stefan Meister replaced Fritz Oesterle . On September 1, 2011, Stefan Meister was replaced by Florian Funck, who began his career in the holding company and was most recently CFO of the Haniel subsidiary TAKKT AG in Stuttgart. Jürgen Kluge left his position on August 1, 2012; He was followed by Stephan Gemkow, who was most recently CFO of Lufthansa AG.

In January 2013, the Haniel Group took fourth place in the Wirtschaftsblatt magazine's ranking of the 500 largest family businesses .

On January 23, 2014, Haniel announced that the original failed takeover of Celesio by the US McKesson Group will now be completed. McKesson has already secured 75% of the shares in Celesio through new contracts with the majority shareholder Haniel and the US hedge fund Elliott, so that a corresponding control and profit transfer agreement can be concluded.

In October 2017, the packaging company Rovema, Fernwald , was bought by Equita GmbH & Co. Holding KGaA and Equita GmbH & Co. CoVest KGaA, and a spokesman for the family company announced the signing of the contract by the two companies and the managing partner Thomas Becker. In autumn 2018, the family business announced a change in the management of Rovema, Thomas Becker left the company. He has been responsible for the management since 2011. For the time being, Peter Baumgartner took over the management.

The chairman of the board, Stephan Gemkow (CEO), stepped down from office on June 30, 2019. Thomas Schmidt took over his position. The Haniel Management Board currently consists of two members: Thomas Schmidt (CEO) and Florian Funck (CFO).

Haniel today

Today, Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH , which is owned by over 690 shareholders from the Haniel family , has a diversified portfolio from Duisburg . The entire Haniel Group consists of 206 individual companies and generated annual sales of around € 4,683 million in 2018 with 18,824 employees in over 30 countries.

Business areas

• 

  BekaertDeslee
  100.00%

• 

  CWS-boco
  82.19%

• 

  ELG
  100%

• 

  TAKKT
  50.25%

Financial investments

• 

  Ceconomy AG
  22.71%

• 

  Metro AG
  15.20%

Six business areas currently belong to the portfolio: The 100 percent holdings Bekaert Textiles (specialist in the development and manufacture of woven and knitted fabrics for mattress covers), CWS-boco International GmbH (rental and sale of work clothing as well as washroom hygiene) and ELG ( recycling and Trading in raw materials for the stainless steel industry), the majority stake (50.25%) TAKKT ( B2B mail order business for office, factory and warehouse equipment) and Optimar (fish processing systems) and the minority stake of 15.20% in Metro Wholesale & Food Specialist and 22.71% in Ceconomy , which emerged from the Metro Group , one of the most important international retail groups.

Grandchildren

The term “enkelfähig”, which has its origins in the field of sustainability , is both a brand of Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH as well as the title of the company magazine. Haniel interprets the term in the form that it sums up the company's claim to create and strengthen financial, social and ecological values. It should convey the sense of responsibility and the long-term orientation of a company.

The company magazine "enkelfähig" from Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH appeared for the first time in November 2011. It is created in cooperation with the agency C3 Creative Code and Content (formerly: Burda Creative Group ) and appears three times a year. The edition is 11,000. The magazine is only available in German, only issues # 3 and # 4 were also available in English. In the case of “enkelfähig”, the company is deliberately not the primary focus - more than half of the content has no direct connection to Haniel. An essential part of the magazine concept is to deal with topics that span and connect generations, and to shed light on the respective mono-topic from a wide variety of perspectives. The magazine has won various national and international awards both as a print and as an online version. a. Several times the Best of Corporate Publishing (BCP) award and the Econ Award (presented by Econ Verlag ).

Corporate governance at Haniel

Since the founding of Franz Haniel & Cie. in 1917, the family left the operational business entirely to external managers. As of this year, ownership and corporate management have been separated from one another by an unwritten law within the family.

The Haniel group organization

The long-term corporate strategy is dictated by the family. As part of the annual shareholders' meeting, the family members present elect an advisory board from among those present every five years. This consists of 30 family members, eight to ten of whom in turn form the “small circle”. The shareholders 'meeting sends eight members of the small circle to the supervisory board as shareholders' representatives , where they help determine the principles of business policy and influence corporate strategy. Franz Markus Haniel has been the chairman of the supervisory board since 2003 . Since mid-2012, two of the family-related Supervisory Board seats and, accordingly, two of the seats in the Small Circle have been assigned to external personalities from the business world.

Every two years the holding company organizes a youth meeting at which the young shareholders get to know one of the company's business areas (age limit 40 years). Necessary internal family communication and coordination processes have recently been supported with the help of the "Haniel Family Net", a closed electronic network.

→ Main article : Haniel (entrepreneurial family)

One of Haniel's principles is never to take more than 25 percent of the net profit after taxes from the company on a long-term average.

To document the history of the company and the life of Franz Haniel, the Haniel Museum was set up in the house where Franz Haniel was born in Duisburg-Ruhrort.

Haniel Foundation

In 1988 the company established the Haniel Foundation, which finances grants and university collaborations with a focus on economics.

→ Main article : Haniel Foundation

Arts and Culture

In autumn 2018, Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH in cooperation with the Märktisches Museum Witten from part of their art collection. The theme was "Informel international", the exhibition lasted until September 16, 2018.

In 2010, the family company was the main sponsor of the Ruhr 2010 cultural event (cultural capital Essen and Ruhr area ).

literature

• Max Karl Feiden, Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH (Ed.): Haniel. Festschrift for the 200th anniversary of Franz Haniel & Cie. Duisburg-Ruhrort 1956.
• Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH (Ed.): Haniel 1756-2006. A chronicle in data and facts . Duisburg 2006.
• Ernst Werner: The Haniel Bridge between Ruhrort and Duisburg . In: Duisburger Forschungen , Volume 17 (1972), pp. 101-164.
• Bodo Herzog, Klaus J. Mattheier: Franz Haniel 1779-1868. Materials, documents and studies on the life and work of the industrial pioneer Franz Haniel . Bonn 1979.
• Hans Spethmann: Franz Haniel. His life and works . Duisburg 1956.
• Heinrich Zähres: History of the "Haniels Krankenstiftung" Duisburg-Ruhrort 1862-1977 in documents . In: Duisburger Forschungen , Volume 37 (1990), pp. 87-162.

Web links

Commons : Franz Haniel & Cie.  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Haniel archive on archive.nrw.de
• Early newspaper articles on Franz Haniel & Cie. in the press kit 20th Century of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Doreen Nowotne (47): Chairwoman of the supervisory board in the family company Haniel since May. Family Businesses in Focus (FiFo) , June 10, 2020, accessed on June 10, 2020 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH: Annual Report 2018 (PDF; 6.47 MB) Retrieved on September 7, 2019 . 
3. ↑ http://www.wirtschaftsblatt.de/data/pdf/Top500-2013.pdf
4. ^ Hans G. Nagl, Christoph Schlautmann: Haniel finds buyers for Xella. In: handelsblatt.com . July 10, 2008, accessed February 16, 2015 . 
5. ↑ Main sponsors: RUHR.2010. In: essen-fuer-das-ruhrgebiet.ruhr2010.de. Archived from the original on July 30, 2012 ; accessed on February 16, 2015 . 
6. ↑ https://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/industrie/chefwechsel-juergen-kluge-wird-neuer-haniel-chef/3255094.html?ticket=ST-555299-RnPPrGfgmBgFazbK9oFH-ap5
7. ↑ Haniel supervisory board confirms appointment of Stephan Gemkow as new CEO. In: haniel.de. Archived from the original on May 13, 2012 ; accessed on February 16, 2015 . 
8. ↑ The largest family businesses in Germany. (PDF; 307 kB) In: Wirtschaftsblatt . Retrieved October 29, 2013 . 
9. ↑ Haniel is getting rid of the pharmaceutical wholesaler Celesio after all. In: manager-magazin.de. January 24, 2014, accessed February 16, 2015 . 
10. ↑ Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH has signed a contract for the complete acquisition of Rovema packaging machines. - Economy - Packaging Review. Retrieved March 22, 2019 . 
11. ↑ Gießener Anzeiger Verlag GmbH & Co KG: The last "savior" is leaving - Gießener Anzeiger. Retrieved March 22, 2019 . 
12. ↑ Haniel: Stephan Gemkows successor is Thomas Schmidt. Retrieved March 18, 2019 . 
13. ↑ Portfolio - Welcome to Haniel. In: haniel.de. Retrieved February 16, 2015 . 
14. ↑ Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH: grandchildren. In: haniel.de. Retrieved April 20, 2015 . 
15. ↑ Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH, Burda Creative Group GmbH: About enkelfähig. In: enkelfaehig.de. Retrieved April 20, 2015 . 
16. ^ Forum Corporate Publishing eV: BCP Award 2013 - Category B2B. In: bcp-award.com. Retrieved April 20, 2015 . 
17. ^ Econ Verlag: Econ Awards Corporate Communication, "We are enkelfähig". In: econ-awards.de. Retrieved April 20, 2015 . 
18. ↑ boerse.ARD.de: Welcome to the Haniels! | Stock market history. Retrieved March 18, 2019 . 
19. ↑ Martin Scheele: Family Haniel: The by-product of the youth meeting - manager magazin. In: manager-magazin.de. July 19, 2005, accessed February 16, 2015 . 
20. ↑ Nicolas Zeitler: Due to the restructuring of the holding: Haniel again with a new IT boss. In: cio.de. March 5, 2012, accessed February 16, 2015 . 
21. ↑ A. Koeberle-Schmid, H. Fahrion, P. Witt (ed.): Family Business Governance - Successful management of family businesses ( Memento of 12 March 2014 Internet Archive ) 2nd edition, Erich Schmidt Verlag, 2012, ISBN 978 -3-503-13637-7 (reading sample as PDF file)
22. ↑ boerse.ARD.de: Welcome to the Haniels! | Stock market history. Retrieved March 18, 2019 . 
23. ↑ DUISBURG nonstop - Haniel Museum. In: duisburgnonstop.de. February 24, 2015, accessed February 16, 2015 . 
24. ^ Informel international - excerpts from the Haniel collection. Retrieved March 22, 2019 .