Furniture Walther
| Möbel Walther AG | |
|---|---|
| legal form | Public company since 1991 |
| founding | 1960s |
| Seat |
Schönefeld , Germany (formerly Gründau-Lieblos )
 |
| management | Peter Zengerling, Roman Pury |
| Number of employees | 4,950 (2000) 1,274 (2012) |
| sales | 1,570 million DM (2000), 261 million € (2012) |
| Branch | retail trade |
Möbel Walther is a German furniture trading company. It was founded by Rudolf Walther in the 1960s in what is now the Gründau district of Lieblos . His son, Gerhard Walther, led the company for many years and was largely responsible for the rapid expansion. Möbel Walther has been a stock corporation since November 1991 , which today only operates furniture stores of the SCONTO brand after being taken over by the Höffner furniture chain . In 2003, the last family members of the founding family were released from the company.
history
As a family company , Möbel Walther quickly expanded on the East German market after German reunification. Furniture stores in Dresden , Chemnitz , Leipzig , Halle (Saale) , Magdeburg , Cottbus and Berlin followed. The main house was in Gründau-Lieblos. In the old federal states, a furniture store was added in Schwetzingen . In addition, take-away markets were operated under the name Sconto SB . In 1997 Möbel-Mutschler with locations in Leonberg and Neu-Ulm was taken over. The specialty chain “Ticco - Küche & Bad” also belonged to the group until 2004 and was sold to “Küchen-Keie” with stores in Walldorf , Mainz , Weiterstadt and Kriftel (Taunus).
In 2000 a branch in Warsaw and a web shop were opened. The company was certified according to EN ISO 9001 . Möbel Walther was considered a very social employer and stood out from the market through extensive further education and training measures for employees. Furthermore, there were extensive personnel development programs that made an internal career possible. Company founder Rudolf Walther was very involved in helping children with the Rudolf Walther Foundation (today Children's Future ).
Möbel Walther achieved an annual turnover of around 1.6 billion Deutschmarks between 1998 and 2000 . The expansion course and above all the takeover of the Mutschler houses ultimately led to a financial collapse.
In 2003 the real estate company tried to force the termination of the lease for the rented house in Neu-Ulm by stopping the sale because of alleged security deficiencies in the building, but was forced by the Memmingen regional court to resume operations. In 2004, managers of the company negotiated with the operating company of the Mutschler Center, which is owned by the State of Berlin, an early termination of the lease that ran until 2016. The company threatened to go into bankruptcy in order to force the termination of the rental agreement. The public prosecutor's office in Berlin started investigations in 2010 because there was never any risk of bankruptcy. The premature termination resulted in a loss of € 97 million for the State of Berlin. The initiator of this situation, however, was not a member of the Walther family, but the current company owner around the Krieger Group.
In 2012, the turnover of the Möbel-Walther group was around € 260 million.