Peter Kaiser shoe factory

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Peter Kaiser Schuhfabrik GmbH
legal form GmbH
founding 1838
Seat Pirmasens , Germany
management Stefan Frank
Number of employees ~ 500 employees (2019)
  • 200 in Pirmasens and
  • ~ 300 in Portugal
sales € 56.0 million (2018)
Branch Shoe production
Website www.peter-kaiser.de

The Peter Kaiser shoe factory from Pirmasens in Rhineland-Palatinate is the oldest of the shoe factories still in existence in Germany today. The company, founded in 1838, produced around 940,000 pairs of shoes in 2012 at two locations in Pirmasens and Felgueiras ( Portugal ) .

history

In 1838 the entrepreneur Peter Kaiser founded the shoe factory of the same name in Pirmasens, which was then the center of the German shoe industry. Just five years later, the up-and-coming company began exporting to other European countries and overseas. The problem of the lack of competitiveness with cheap shoes from Italy and Portugal , which appeared in the 20th century, was solved by the company with high quality, the restriction of production only to women's shoes and the claim to produce with as natural materials as possible.

In 2001, following a market analysis, the decision was made to build a new, modern plant in Pirmasens instead of relocating complete production abroad. Today the Peter Kaiser GmbH is one of the few surviving and now also the largest shoe company in Pirmasens of 240 factories in 1914 with 14,000 employees at the time. In 2007 a new factory hall was built for the plant in Portugal.

The business is still owned by the founder's descendants.

Facts

In 2007 the company had sales of € 54.9 million and a profit of € 3.6 million. After annual increases since 2004, a sales decline of € 51.3 million was recorded for the first time in 2008, while the net profit rose to € 4.5 million. In 2009, sales fell further to € 42.867 million and retained earnings to € 3.4 million; In 2011 sales rose to € 46.6 million. At the end of 2011, Peter Kaiser GmbH had around 770 employees, 469 of whom were still employed in the main plant in Pirmasens. Abroad, the company has branches in Felgueiras, Saargemünd ( France ) and New York . One million pairs of shoes are produced annually, around 60% of which are exported abroad. Of the 450 employees who remained in the main plant at the beginning of 2012, around 100 had been eliminated by 2013, with some of the positions being relocated to the Portuguese plant. By the beginning of 2019, the number of employees in Pirmasens had fallen to 200, while in Portugal around 300 people worked for Peter Kaiser.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Peter Kaiser Schuhfabrik GmbH: Imprint
  2. ^ A b Mechthild Treusch: Dismissals from Peter Kaiser. In: Rheinpfalz. February 15, 2019 ( rheinpfalz.de ).
  3. ↑ a b Elisabeth Dostert: Palatinate shoe company turns 175: Emperor's new shoes. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . May 1, 2013 ( sueddeutsche.de ).
  4. ↑ a b Electronic Federal Gazette: Annual financial statements as of December 31, 2018
  5. ↑ Abels & Kemmer: Pirmasens or Portugal? ( Memento from August 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ Peter Kaiser completes job cuts. In: The Rhine Palatinate . September 27, 2014, accessed April 19, 2020 .