Herrenknecht

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Herrenknecht

logo
legal form Corporation
founding 1977: GmbH
1998: AG
Seat Schwanau , GermanyGermanyGermany 
management
Number of employees 4,426 (2018)
sales 1.137 billion euros (2018)
Branch mechanical engineering
Website www.herrenknecht.com

The Herrenknecht AG is a manufacturer of tunnel boring machines . The company's headquarters are in Schwanau - Allmannsweier near Lahr in Baden-Württemberg . In 2014, a good two thirds of the almost 5000 employees were employed at the headquarters in Allmannsweier, where the assembly of the hydraulic and electronic components and the final acceptance of the tunnel boring machines are carried out. Around 900 people will be employed at nine locations in the People's Republic of China in 2020 . In addition to assembling the machines for the Asian market, steel structures are also manufactured there.

history

The company was founded in 1977 by Martin Herrenknecht as Herrenknecht GmbH . In 1992 he founded the first subsidiary in the USA. In 1998 he converted the company into the legal form of a stock corporation . The owner family decided not to go public because of the stock market bubble in 2000, so Herrenknecht AG is not listed on the stock exchange . Near-surface geothermal energy was developed as a new business area.

At the end of 2015, Martin Herrenknecht transferred his company to a family foundation that is now the owner of Herrenknecht AG . His family waived the compulsory portion of their inheritance, and Martin Herrenknecht took out a personal loan to cover the inheritance taxes of around 15 to 20 million euros that had now become due due to the establishment of the foundation. Herrenknecht postponed his resignation planned for 2019 and announced that he would only retire from 2020. First of all, a board member should then run the business, he would endeavor in the long term to bring his son into a leadership role.

With incoming orders totaling 1.27 billion euros, a new record was set in the 2016 financial year.

View from the southwest of the Herrenknecht parent plant in Allmannsweier

Products

The company manufactures tunnel boring machines. For example, Herrenknecht produced machines for large projects such as the Gotthard Base Tunnel or the TRUDE tunneling machine that drilled the extension of the Elbe Tunnel . Other products are micromachines for sewer expansion. The production program covers cross-sections from 10 centimeters to 19 meters.

In addition, Herrenknecht Service offers the project management of tunnel projects and a rental park for tunnel boring machines as well as used machines.

In addition, since 2005 the subsidiaries are Herrenknecht Vertical manufacturing automatically controlled rigs for drilling depths of up to 8000 meters depth for the development of natural gas - and oil lagerstätten onshore and offshore areas as well as near-Earth and deep geothermal energy .

Projects

Herrenknecht exports and installs its machines worldwide. The company received many orders from the People's Republic of China, where underground trains and rail connections for express trains between metropolitan areas are being built in several metropolitan areas . By the end of 2016, more than 240 Herrenknecht tunnel boring machines (TBM) had been used in 25 Chinese cities for the construction of metro trains.

In the 2000s, four hard rock machines were developed and deployed for the Swiss Gotthard Base Tunnel , which extends in two single-lane tunnel tubes under up to two kilometers of rock cover. Until then, Herrenknecht had little experience with hard rock mining and solved the problem with so-called grippers . During the drilling, the tractor of the drill shield is held on the rock with two hydraulically extendable convex plates, the grippers, so that a sufficiently high pressure can be generated against the hard rock.

An order by the Russian oligarch Roman Abramowitsch in 2008 for the largest tunnel boring machine at the time with a diameter of around 20 meters, which was accompanied by great media attention, was again tacitly canceled by Abramowitsch. On the occasion of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi , Herrenknecht built six new tunnels between the Black Sea coast and the ski area in the Caucasus for a combined railway line and expressway. To this end, the company built the world's largest factory for segments , the formwork elements for the tunnel tubes, in Sochi .

For Herrenknecht, a milestone in the company's recent history was the 3.34 kilometer tunneling under the geologically sensitive area of ​​the Bosporus in August 2015. In addition to a very high proportion of sand and other loose rock , a water pressure of up to 11  bar had to be technically managed here In contrast, the water pressure in the new Hamburg Elbe Tunnel is only 5.5 bar. In addition, two special seismic compensation rings were installed, which give the tunnel a certain flexibility against earthquakes. Since December 20, 2016, around 100,000 vehicles have been able to switch between the continents in the Eurasia Tunnel every day on two lanes on top of each other, thereby relieving the remaining traffic infrastructure in Istanbul considerably.

The Pearl River Delta between Guangzhou and Hong Kong ( Guangdong Province ) has become a new focus of Herrenknecht's commitment in China . This region was selected as one of the industrial centers of China by the Chinese government in the 1990s. With 42 million inhabitants (2015), the Pearl River Delta is the largest metropolitan region in the world and should therefore be equipped with an efficient infrastructure. Herrenknecht was entrusted with several underground railway projects here. In 2020, 76 tunnel boring machines will be in use for the metro in Guangzhou alone. In 2019, 14 lines with over 400 kilometers of network were in operation, including to Guangzhou Airport and the neighboring city of Foshan . The plans envisage 888 kilometers on 18 lines by 2023.

Key figures

The company estimates the world market for machine tunneling equipment at around 1.5 billion euros, of which Herrenknecht reported around 1.1 billion euros in January 2014. The company is also referred to as a hidden champion in business literature because it dominates a market rather “quietly and unobtrusively”.

In 2015, the company achieved a profit before taxes and interest of 74 million euros. In the same year, the company achieved sales of more than 900 million euros with traffic tunnels and 175 million euros in tunnel construction for supply and disposal. Europe, Asia and the Arab region each contributed more than 300 million euros.

In the 2015 financial year, the company generated 95 percent of its total turnover of 1.34 billion euros abroad.

social commitment

Herrenknecht financially supports competitive athletes such as the heptathlete Carolin Schäfer , the javelin thrower Thomas Röhler and the shot putter David Storl . In addition, Herrenknecht employees donate to charitable institutions such as the Freiburg Association for Children with Cancer, Aktion Deutschland Hilft , Doctors Without Borders , Karlheinz Böhms Ethiopia Aid People for People and other aid organizations.

Movies

  • The Herrenknecht tunnel drill - world market leader from Baden. Documentary, Germany, 2014, 29 min., Script and direction: Joachim Auch, production: SWR , series: made in Südwest , first broadcast: January 8, 2015 on SWR, synopsis by ARD , online video by SWR.
  • The tunnel builders: a German drill for the French railways. Documentary, Germany, 2013, 29:14 min., Script and director: Michael Hertle, production: SWR, series: Schlaglicht , first broadcast: February 26, 2013 on SWR, summary by ARD.

Web links

Commons : Herrenknecht AG  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. The Management Board and the Supervisory Board of Herrenknecht AG introduce themselves. In: herrenknecht.com , accessed on March 16, 2016.
  2. Press release: Change in the chairmanship of the Herrenknecht AG supervisory board. In: herrenknecht.de , September 25, 2012.
  3. a b Herrenknecht in numbers. In: herrenknecht.com , accessed on August 24, 2019.
  4. a b References: Guangzhou Metro. In: herrenknecht.com , December 2019, accessed on January 8, 2020.
  5. ↑ In 2016 around 850 employees worked at six locations in China; see press release: Federal Minister of Economics Sigmar Gabriel fascinated by tunnel construction in Hong Kong. In: herrenknecht.com , November 3, 2016, accessed January 8, 2020.
  6. Chronicle of the Herrenknecht company: A story with a forward thrust. In: herrenknecht.de , accessed on January 8, 2020.
    Detailed version: Chronicle of Herrenknecht. ( Memento from March 17, 2016 in the web archive archive.today ).
  7. Jörg Buteweg, Bernd Kramer: Herrenknecht transfers his company to a foundation. ( Memento from April 28, 2018 in the Internet Archive ). In: Badische Zeitung , January 15, 2016, interview with Martin Herrenknecht.
  8. Jörg Braun: Herrenknecht makes his son fit for leadership. In: Lahrer Zeitung , July 30, 2018.
  9. Bernd Ziesemer : German Politics - "This is a drama". In: The world . December 30, 2016, accessed on February 12, 2017 (interview with Martin Herrenknecht).
  10. a b Jörg Buteweg: Herrenknecht reports a record of orders. In: Badische Zeitung , May 6, 2017, p. 23: He drills and drills and drills , only the beginning of the article.
  11. ^ Tunneling. Modern tunnel systems pave the way for the future. In: herrenknecht.com , accessed on January 8, 2020.
  12. Original Herrenknecht Services. Boost your performance. In: herrenknecht.com , (German), accessed on January 8, 2020.
  13. "Herrenknecht approved". In: herrenknecht.com , April 14, 2013, accessed on January 8, 2020.
  14. ^ Herrenknecht Vertical - Automated Rig Technology. In: Herrenknecht Vertical , (English), accessed on January 8, 2020.
  15. Exploration. Securing the energy supply of the future. In: herrenknecht.com , accessed on January 8, 2020.
  16. Herrenknecht worldwide. There for you around the globe. In: herrenknecht.com , accessed on March 16, 2016.
  17. References. In: herrrenknecht.com ; Enter China in the search mask.
  18. Press release: Federal Minister of Economics Sigmar Gabriel fascinated by tunnel construction in Hong Kong. In: herrenknecht.com , November 3, 2016, accessed January 8, 2020.
  19. Urs Willmann: The man in the mountain. In: Die Zeit , No. 26, June 21, 2007, p. 2.
  20. Georg Küffner: Gotthard piercing. The longest railway tunnel in the world. In: FAZ , October 14, 2010.
  21. itz / dpa : Made in Germany: Russian billionaire orders the world's largest tunnel drill. In: Spiegel online , March 26, 2008.
      Verena Diethelm: Oligarch buys largest tunnel milling machine. ( Memento from February 14, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) In: WirtschaftsBlatt , March 27, 2008.
  22. Georg Meck: The tunnel drill. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung , September 25, 2009:
    »Just with the client Roman Abramowitsch there isn't much going on at the moment. "He only has the young friend and his soccer club in mind."
  23. ^ Achim Kühn: Tempo for Olympia 2014. ( Memento from February 14, 2015 in the Internet Archive ). In: herrenknecht-formwork.com , July 23, 2010.
  24. High tech under the Bosporus. Ultimate tunnel advance. In: All Around (Herrenknecht), No. 4, accessed on March 5, 2017.
  25. Connecting Continents. In: All Around (Herrenknecht), No. 4, (German), accessed on March 5, 2017.
  26. ^ HG: Will Guangdong soon be a model province for "modern China"? ( Memento of March 4, 2018 in the Internet Archive ). In: Germany Trade & Invest , March 20, 2015.
  27. Max Hägler: "The German is really afraid of everything" . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . January 20, 2014, ISSN  0174-4917 , p. 16, ( beginning of the interview ).
  28. ^ Matthias Kamp: Germany's best medium-sized company. The new style of the hidden champions. In: WirtschaftsWoche , November 11, 2015.
  29. Susanne Preuss: Tunnel drill with emphasis. In: FAZ , August 5, 2016, No. 181, p. 28: "... 1.34 billion euros in total output is 95 percent abroad, but there are also important projects in the country ..." ( online quote ).
  30. Sports and social issues. In: herrenknecht.com , accessed on January 24, 2019.

Coordinates: 48 ° 21 ′ 33.9 "  N , 7 ° 46 ′ 30.3"  E