Haarmann & Reimer
Haarmann & Reimer (H&R) was a company in the fragrance and flavoring industry based in Holzminden and merged with Dragoco on February 20, 2003 to form Symrise GmbH & Co. KG.
History of the company
1874 to 1931
Ferdinand Tiemann and Wilhelm Haarmann founded Haarmann's vanillin factory in Holzminden in the summer of 1874 for the large-scale use of a new type of synthesis route for vanillin . In the spring of 1874, both had succeeded in the oxidative breakdown of the side chains of coniferin to glucovanillin, which could be split into glucose and vanillin by treatment with the enzyme emulsin .
In 1876 Karl Reimer became a co-owner because the method he developed at the end of 1875 and later known as the Reimer-Tiemann reaction indicated an extremely inexpensive synthesis of vanillin based on guaiacol . The company then called itself Haarmann & Reimer Vanillinfabrik in Holzminden on the Weser.
It was the first factory in the emerging fragrance industry to produce a synthetic flavor. As brother-in-law of AW v. Hofmann started an academic career and only participated in the company as a silent partner.
In 1876, H&R received the first award for its synthetic fragrances at the International Exhibition in Philadelphia, USA. Five years later, co-owner Karl Reimer left the company due to illness and died two years later. In 1890 Wilhelm Haarmann built half-timbered semi-detached houses with “stable buildings for small cattle and a quarter of acres of land” for married employees. A benefit fund for workers in need and a pension fund were added later. An isoeugenol process developed by Tiemann in 1891 further reduced manufacturing costs and made vanillin production profitable. As early as 1893, the company was presented at the Columbian World Exhibition. In the same year, the production of the violet flavor Ionon was started using a process invented by Tiemann. For the production of natural plant extracts, a lavender plantation and Reseda and lupine plantations were also established in Holzminden . From 1893 to 1903 another 30 patent applications followed, including the Reimer-Tiemann synthesis of salicylaldehyde , a precursor of the woodruff's aroma coumarin . Lengthy patent disputes had damaged the health of the partner Ferdinand Tiemann and he died in 1899. At the turn of the century, the company in Holzminden received a telephone connection (number 19). In the following year, 1901, the partnership was converted into a GmbH. The company's founder Wilhelm Haarmann died in 1931 as a result of an injury that he sustained while traveling by ship. His sons took over the management of the company.
1932 to 1953
In 1938, H&R had 100 employees and achieved sales of 2 million Reichsmarks.
As a result of the Second World War , all foreign holdings were lost in 1945. From 1946 onwards the laborious new beginning of the company began. The hourly wage for a worker was DM 0.49. In 1949, the number of H&R employees in Holzminden at the time of the currency reform was 86 employees and 94 workers.
In 1953 the managing director Dr. Rudolf Groger and his deputy Georg Kerschbaum took over the restructuring of H&R and found a strong investor in the Bayer Group to become a major international manufacturer of fragrances and flavorings. This year H&R had 260 employees and generated sales of 5 million DM, with an export quota of 17 percent.
1954 to 2003
The company was bought up by Bayer AG in 1954 and operated independently as a subsidiary. H&R founded subsidiaries and made acquisitions in Mexico, the USA, Brazil, Great Britain, South Africa, France and Spain.
In 1955, Norbert Malaka was elected chairman of the works council at H&R and in 1959 was appointed works foreman. From 1962 he was also on the company's supervisory board.
Dr. Claus Skopalik became the new managing director of H&R in 1968 as the successor to Dr. Rudolf Groger. This year more than 1,000 employees worked for H&R and achieved a worldwide turnover of 80 million DM with an export quota of 35 percent.
In 1973 the company succeeded in fully synthetic production of menthol for the first time .
In 1990 H&R took over the fragrance manufacturer Créations Aromatiques and in 1992 the perfumery business from PFW. In 1993, H&R achieved group sales of 1.3 billion DM (651.4 million euros). Lambert Courth became the new managing director, Dr. Reinhard Kaiser. In 1995, H&R took over the fragrance and flavor manufacturer Florasynth.
In 1997, the company was fined $ 50 million for antitrust violations for negotiating the price of citric acid with competitors from 1991 to 1995 . In addition, there were lawsuits from damaged companies. In 1997, H&R invested around 43 million DM (21.5 million euros) in new facilities and buildings in Germany, including the reaction distillation system for odoriferous and cosmetic active ingredients (8 million DM or 4.1 million euros) in Holzminden.
The company's investments in 1998 amounted to 52 million DM (26.6 million euros). Investments were made in new facilities, including a new production facility in Bogotá (Colombia) and new buildings and facilities in São Paulo (Brazil). In the same year, around 22 million DM (11 million euros) were spent on additional maintenance work at the company's headquarters in Holzminden. In 1998 sales totaled around 1.5 billion DM (approx. 767 million euros) worldwide.
In 1999 a new plant in Nördlingen in Bavaria was completed for 70 million DM (35.8 million euros) and a crystallization plant in Holzminden for 12 million DM (6.2 million euros). In the same year, H&R took over the Chinese shares in the joint venture company H&R Cosfra Ltd. in Shanghai. Plans have begun to build a new factory in Podong ( Shanghai district ) with an investment of 15 million US dollars. In 1999, the number of employees at H&R was over 4,000 worldwide. The company was represented with its own companies on all continents. In addition, 770 employees were trained from 1974 to 1999.
In 2002 Bayer AG sold Haarmann & Reimer on September 30, 2002 for 1.66 billion euros to the Swedish investment group EQT Partners AB and granted EQT a loan of 250 million euros in connection with the sale. EQT in turn also bought a minority stake in Dragoco AG, which is also based in Holzminden . The companies H&R and Dragoco merged in 2003 to form Symrise GmbH & Co. KG, which was floated on the stock exchange in 2006.
literature
- Hans-Ulrich Grimm : The soup is lying. Cotta'sche Buchhandlung / Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-608-93685-8 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Chem. Zentralbl. 5 , 652 (1874) . - CR Acad. Sci. 79 , 635 (1874) . - Date of foundation August 1, 1874 .
- ↑ F. Tiemann and W. Haarmann: About coniferin and its transformation into the aromatic principle of vanilla . In: Ber. German Chem. Ges. 7 , 608-623 (1874). Digitized on Gallica .
- ↑ Patent DE 576 , filed July 13, 1877. - Patent DE 27992 . registered August 28, 1883.
- ^ Reimer's reaction by K. Reimer: About a new mode of formation of aromatic aldehydes . In: Ber. German Chem. Ges. 9 , 423-424 (1876). Digitized on Gallica .
- ^ Co -owner Karl Reimer . - Dead end guaiacol
- ^ Otto Mühlhäuser: The chemical industry at the Columbian world exhibition in 1893. In: Polytechnisches Journal . 290, 1893, pp. 159-167.
- ↑ Patent DE 73089 , filed April 25, 1893.
- ↑ Tiemann dies after a patent dispute
- ^ Haarmann & Reimer, chemical factory in Holzminden GmbH - share capital 449,800 Mk. Angew. Chemie 45, 1146 (1901). doi : 10.1002 / anie.19010144509
- ↑ a b Our history. Retrieved June 22, 2019 .
- ↑ http://www.manager-magazin.de/unternehmen/artikel/a-216440.html