Groupe PP Holding
| GROUPE PP HOLDING SA | |
|---|---|
| legal form | Corporation |
| founding | 1912 |
| Seat | Geneva , Switzerland |
| management | Jean-Philippe de Tolédo ( CEO Jean de Tolédo Chairman of the Board ) |
| Number of employees | approx. 1,000 |
| sales | > CHF 230 million |
| Branch | Retail trade, health industry |
| Website | www.pharmacie-principale.ch |
The Groupe PP Holding SA (PP stands for Pharmacie Principale ), headquartered in Geneva is in the health sector active Swiss group of companies. It is owned by the founding families in the third generation and comprises seven subsidiaries, including the market leader in Swiss optics , Visilab SA . Group PP Holding employs around 1,000 people and generates annual sales of over 230 million Swiss francs.
Field of activity
The Group operates through its subsidiaries in various health areas, with the pharmacy chain Pharmacie Principale in drug sales, with the optician chain Visilab in ophthalmic optics, with Audilab in audiology , the tour operator Destination Santé in the area of wellness and health holidays , with Pharmap in the sale of medical equipment and aids, with Management Care in collective health insurance and with Life Store in engineering for pharmacies.
history
The company was founded on January 17, 1912 by Henri, Victor and Albert de Toledo and their cousin Salomon "Sam" Mori in Geneva under the name Pharmacie Principale as a general partnership after Victor de Toledo founded his own pharmacy, the Pharmacie du Park, in 1907 . opened and Marc de Toledo had been running a pharmacy in Paris since 1899. The de Toledo and Mori families are of Jewish Sephardic origin and immigrated from Andrinopol (Edirne) in the then Ottoman Empire via France to Switzerland. As long-term members of the Alliance Israélite Universelle , they were largely French assimilated , but the de Toledo were also re-naturalized Spanish nationals; they were naturalized in Geneva in 1910. In March 1918 the company was converted into a stock corporation. The company developed into a pharmacy chain with its own large-scale production and operated an extensive mail-order business until 1952 . In 1923 the brothers expanded into photo films and photo laboratories with the then brand Victory . In 1925 the optics division, from which Visilab would later emerge, was created, initially with sunglasses and from 1928 also with corrective glasses. In 1934, the headache pulverizer Kafa , patented in Poitiers in 1914, was acquired and, after the purchase of similar sounding brands ( Kefol , Kasa ), became a blockbuster for the Pharmacie Principale . Sales of the tonic Tonique Tolédo also developed strongly. On January 11, 1932 , a French subsidiary was founded in nearby Annemasse , across the Swiss border, into which the Laboratoire Moser company, which was acquired in 1936 and was mainly known for its product Maltea Moser , was later integrated . Simon Zivian was the director of the production laboratories around 1936. Under the conditions of the so-called war economy, the subsidiary Laboratoires Médial SA for the manufacture of vaccines was established on October 27, 1941 . Other subsidiaries were Jef SA and Cospar SA for the wholesale trade.
Individual evidence
- ↑ The family name book of Switzerland , a service of the Historical Lexicon of Switzerland , names the naturalizations of the Mori family, Turkish citizens, in 1919 in Chêne-Bougeries and 1929 in Geneva and the naturalization of the de Toledo family, Spanish citizens, in 1910 in Geneva.
- ^ Bernard Lescaze, Lilliane de Toledo: Pharmacie Principale - 100 ans à Genève . Genève 2013 (Source assessment: Company publication without ISBN and publisher. Carefully written company history, but without a critical or neutral point of view.).