LR Health & Beauty Systems

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LR Health & Beauty Systems GmbH

logo
legal form GmbH
founding 1985
Seat Ahlen , Germany
management Andreas Friesch (CEO / Management Spokesman), Thomas Heursen (General Manager Global Partner Relations), Andreas Laabs (CFO / COO)
Number of employees worldwide approx. 1,200, of which approx. 600 at the headquarters (2016)
sales EUR 258 million (2016)
Website www.lrworld.com

LR Health & Beauty Systems GmbH was founded in 1985 by Helmut Spikker and Achim Hickmann in Ahlen , Westphalia under the name LR Cosmetic & Marketing GmbH and is considered the largest German network marketing company in the field of health and beauty products.

Products

The company's product range includes the sale of self-made products such as perfume and cosmetic care series as well as merchandise such as decorative cosmetics, fashion jewelry, accessories and dietary supplements. According to the annual financial statements as of December 31, 2008, the company's own cosmetics and personal care products are produced exclusively at the Ahlen site; nutritional supplements are manufactured and filled by external suppliers. Decorative cosmetics and accessories are mainly imported from Southeast Asia as trading goods. On October 16, 2013, LR opened a new research and development center for dietary supplements and diet products in Ahlen (North Rhine-Westphalia) with a size of 320 square meters, followed in 2018 by the opening of a 4,000 square meter production facility for aloe vera products.

Companies

According to its own information, sales at LR Health & Beauty Systems developed as follows:

  • 1985 € 0.4 million
  • 1994 € 120 million
  • 1997 € 141 million
  • 2002 € 175 million
  • 2005 € 308 million
  • 2006 € 325 million
  • 2014 € 228 million
  • 2015 € 230 million
  • 2016 € 258 million

In 2009, according to the annual financial statements published in the electronic Federal Gazette , LR Health & Beauty Systems achieved total sales of EUR 153.1 million as of December 31, 2009, compared to EUR 139.3 million in the previous year. About 73 percent of this was achieved in Germany. As of the December 31, 2009 balance sheet date, the company employed 473 people, compared to 478 in the previous year, and has 19 active foreign subsidiaries in Europe and one company in Australia. LR employs around 1,000 people worldwide. In 2011, LR had a total turnover of 230 million euros in all of its stores, and in the first half of 2012 sales rose by five percent. In 2014, LR generated sales of 228 million euros. According to LR, the main growth drivers for the sales increase of 15% in 2016 were international markets such as Turkey, Italy, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain, but the German market also grew well. More than 1,200 people are employed by LR worldwide, more than 600 of them at the headquarters in Ahlen. In 2016, LR announced investments of around 10 million euros in a new production facility, the construction of which began in February 2017. It was inaugurated on February 9, 2018 in Ahlen. According to the company, around 12,000 tons of aloe vera leaves are processed there and so-called aloe vera drinking gels are produced.

In June 2011, the cosmetics, health and personal care company started its business in Russia. The LR Health & Beauty Systems GmbH product range is sold there via the Moscow and St. Petersburg locations. In September 2012, LR also entered the Kazakhstan market.

LR Health & Beauty Systems GmbH was owned by the US private equity company Apax Partners , which took over a minority stake at the end of 2004 and held the majority from 2009. From 2013 LR was part of the portfolio of the investment companies Quadriga Capital and Bregal Capital . Since summer 2018, LR has been a 100% part of Quadriga Capital's portfolio.

As a member, LR is organized in the following associations, among others: Association of sales companies for cosmetic products V. (VKE), Federal Association of German Industrial and Trading Companies for Drugs, Health Food, Dietary Supplements and Personal Care Products e. V. (BDIH), Federal Association of Direct Sales Germany e. V. (BDD) and the European Association for Direct Selling (SELDIA).

Distribution channels

The product is sold through so-called network marketing , which is also known under the term multilevel marketing. According to the company, around 300,000 independent LR partners are connected to the sales system. However, only a small part of them work as sales partners, while the majority only buy the products for their own use.

LR Global Kids Fund

LR Health & Beauty Systems GmbH has been involved in charitable activities worldwide since January 2009 with the specially founded children's aid organization LR Global Kids Fund e. V. The organization celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2019 and has so far raised more than three million euros in donations. She supports u. a. with the sale of donated products such as a Christmas cup for charitable projects such as RTL children's homes or SOS children's villages . The Lunch Club children's facility was opened in Ahlen, whose activities employees can support as part of the "Hands on" program. They are released from work for this assignment.

Sponsorship

After company founder Helmut Spikker took over the almost bankrupt football club TuS Ahlen , it was renamed LR Ahlen (Athletics Rasensport Ahlen eV). LR Health & Beauty Systems was also the main sponsor and the new club logo was reminiscent of the LR company logo. The LR Ahlen club existed between 1996 and 2006. During this time, LR Ahlen played six seasons in the 2nd Bundesliga . After relegation in the 2005/06 season , Spikker retired as club president and LR Health & Beauty Systems as sponsor. The club was later renamed Rot Weiss Ahlen.

criticism

Like comparable companies that also work on the basis of structured sales, LR Health & Beauty Systems GmbH is also criticized for selling diet and nutritional supplement products without proven effectiveness at unreasonably high prices.

The company was criticized for launching the “ Cistus Incanus ” capsules in early 2006 at the height of the bird flu epidemic. At sales events and on the Internet, these “Cistus Incanus” capsules have allegedly been ascribed to have unproven antiviral effects.

In addition, from the beginning of the 1990s to 2005 (i.e. before private equity company Apax Partners joined LR Health & Beauty Systems), the company reportedly reported excessively high sales and growth figures on the website and in press releases.

Individual evidence

  1. LR World: Balance 2016
  2. Hans-Peter Canibol: LR Health & Beauty Systems - The scent of success. Focus online, November 27, 2006, accessed April 4, 2008 (German).
  3. ^ LR Health & Beauty Systems GmbH: Annual financial statements as of December 31, 2008 . Ahlen, April 1, 2009. Published in the electronic Federal Gazette .
  4. die-glocke.de
  5. pharma-zeitung.de
  6. Wallstreet Online: Europe's most modern aloe vera production facility opened
  7. Image brochure from LR Art. No. 91194-001. The same brochure, which was probably published in 2007/08, speaks of "250,000 independent LR partners in 26 countries in Europe as well as Australia and New Zealand". See also section "Criticism"
  8. a b Annual financial statements as of December 31, 2009 of LR Health & Beauty System GmbH. Electronic Federal Gazette , accessed on January 9, 2012.
  9. handelsblatt.com: LR Beauty is to be sold again
  10. LR World: Balance 2016
  11. Ahlener Zeitung: 10 million euros flow into the new production hall
  12. - East expansion of LR successful! ( Memento of the original from December 13, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / upliner.de
  13. direktvertrieb.de
  14. JUVE: Nicely done: Bregal and Quadriga rely on Hengeler and Skadden when purchasing LR
  15. Lebensmittel Zeitung “Quadriga is in charge at LR Global”, August 17, 2018
  16. [1]
  17. [2]
  18. Osnabrück newspaper "People are being sold for stupid" , April 14, 2006

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