Pfleiderer (company)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pfleiderer Group SA

logo
legal form Spółka akcyjna
ISIN ZIPPW0000017
founding 1894
Seat Wroclaw , PolandPolandPoland 
management Zbigniew Prokopowicz ( CEO )
Number of employees 3300 (2014)
sales 960 million euros (2014)
Branch Wood processing, building materials
Website www.pfleiderer.com

Pfleiderer Group , based in Wroclaw, Poland, is a manufacturer of wood-based materials , especially fibreboard for furniture and interior design. In 2013 it employed around 3300 people at eight locations in Germany and Poland and is active in the flat pressed board market segment , better known as particle board.

The company, which was founded in Heilbronn , Württemberg in 1894 , grew into one of the largest companies in Europe in the wood processing sector in the post-war period. When Hans Overdiek took over the management in 2003, a rapid expansion course was embarked on. Overly credit-financed and overpriced acquisitions, which were primarily aimed at the US housing market, turned into a financial disaster in the wake of the real estate crisis there. The ensuing bankruptcyIn March 2012, Pfleiderer made one of the largest restructuring cases in recent German history with just under a billion euros in debt; As part of the subsequent restructuring, Pfleiderer was reorganized under a Polish holding company. The US financial investor Strategic Value Partners (SVP) has been the sole owner since 2019.

history

The company was founded in Heilbronn am Neckar in 1894 as a timber trading and rafting company by Gustav Adolf Pfleiderer (1845–1896) and continued after his early death by his sons Adolf Pfleiderer (1877–1957) and Paul Otto Pfleiderer (1880–1960). After the First World War, the brothers expanded the company to manufacture industrial wood products. In 1919 a sawmill in Neumarkt was bought, later a paper mill in Teisnach and a steam sawmill in Großpertholz . Another brother Georg Pfleiderer (1892–1973), who planned the plant in Neumarkt as an architect and headed it as operations manager from 1927 , also played a decisive role in the expansion of the company . In 1931 the company headquarters were relocated to Neumarkt. Towards the end of the Second World War (1944) the central office was relocated from Heilbronn to Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz due to the effects of the war.

Particle board plant in Neumarkt in the Upper Palatinate
Factory premises at the Neumarkt location

In 1949 Paul Otto Pfleiderer's son Herbert Pfleiderer (1912–1982) took over management of the company. Under his leadership, the company expanded its product range beyond construction timber to include what would later become the “Infrastructure Technology” division, namely railway sleepers and concrete masts. As early as 1960, the company was the largest German woodworks. In 1962, the production of chipboard was started and then continuously expanded. By 1970 Pfleiderer was already employing over 1,000 people. In 1973 Ernst-Herbert Pfleiderer, Herbert Pfleiderer's son, took over the management.

From the beginning of the 1980s, the company expanded into various holdings that also covered other areas of the building materials industry. In 1979, for example, the Moralt Group in Peiting and Bad Tölz , in 1981 EFP-Engineered Fiberglass Products Inc. in Estill in the US state of South Carolina , in 1983 Thermopal Dekorplatten GmbH in Leutkirch , 1986 Duropal in Arnsberg and 1988 Wirus in Gütersloh . They were all brought together under the umbrella of GA Pfleiderer Unternehmensverwaltungsgesellschaft GmbH & Co. KG and later Pfleiderer AG.

At the end of the 1990s, the Pfleiderer Group generated sales of around three billion Deutschmarks and employed 11,200 people at 40 locations. In 1997, the previous sole owners, the Pfleiderer family, brought the company onto the stock exchange due to changes in their own interests, but initially remained the main shareholder. Only in the following 15 years did the previous owners gradually sell their shares, thereby reducing their influence on the fortunes of the company. This development came to a provisional conclusion when Ernst-Herbert Pfleiderer left the Supervisory Board in 2010. At that time, the new main shareholder was the financial investor One Equity Partners (OEP), which (2009) held 23.3% of the shares.

After the turn of the millennium, the holdings acquired in the past increasingly turned out to be loss makers, which practically eroded the profits from the wood-based materials division. This was problematic as the group had already piled up financial debts of around 500 million euros at this point in time. In 2002, the doors and windows and insulation technology sectors were finally sold with considerable losses, and the company withdrew back to its core business with wood-based materials and infrastructure technology.

Shortly after the successful completion of the renovation, the previous head of the wood-based materials division, Hans Overdiek , took over the position of CEO. This initiated renewed expansion activities, this time in the area of ​​wood-based materials and laminate floors . To this end, Pfleiderer took over the Kunz group of companies (the factory in Baruth / Mark) (Uniboard) in 2005 for 479 million euros and the Swedish Pergo AB in 2007 for the equivalent of 300 million euros. The main objective was to penetrate the US housing market on a massive scale. In addition, there were a large number of new production sites in Eastern Europe and Russia in order to achieve market leadership in wood-based materials in these areas as well. A three-digit million amount was also invested there. This rapid expansion could only be partially financed by own funds and capital increases , so that the required credit volume rose dangerously high again. At the same time, Pfleiderer had created overcapacities with its new plants in Eastern Europe, which reduced the company's profitability. When group sales fell in the wake of the economic crisis and the US housing market collapsed, Pfleiderer fell deep into the red and was no longer able to service interest rates. After a restructuring concept developed in 2011 failed by the bond creditors, the group had to file for bankruptcy in March 2012 .

Pfleiderer was taken over by the investment company Atlantik from Luxembourg, an investment company of the corporate restructuring Michael F. Keppel. In the course of the restructuring, numerous plants in Europe were closed or sold for the purpose of repaying debt and the North American business was divested. The group was reduced to the current eight locations with their 3,500 employees.

In early October 2015, the company announced its renewed, but indirect, IPO. The 65.1 percent subsidiary of Pfleiderer GmbH, Pfleiderer Grajewo SA , which is listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, was to take over Pfleiderer GmbH completely after a capital increase and thus become the ultimate group company. In October 2015, the capital increase was initially canceled due to the low willingness to subscribe on the part of Polish investors, and then successfully completed in January 2016; Since then, Pfleiderer has been part of the Pfleiderer Group SA, which is listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange and based in Wroclaw (formerly Pfleiderer Grajewo SA). In October 2019, Strategic Value Partners, a US investment company (together with the Luxembourg investor Atlantik, who remains a minority shareholder) acquired 100 percent of the Pfleiderer Group. As part of the majority takeover, the Pfleiderer Group applied for delisting and was removed from the stock exchange in December of that year.

Former head office and current headquarters for Western Europe in Neumarkt

Web links

Commons : Pfleiderer AG  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ infolox GmbH Management Board. Retrieved June 18, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b https://holding.pfleiderer.com/index.php?app=download&mod=getfile&fileid=684&language=2
  3. ^ Norbert Jung: Quadrat III, grave row XIII, 28–30 - A contribution to the history of the Heilbronn entrepreneur family Gustav Adolf Pfleiderer , Heilbronn 2010, p. 6.
  4. ↑ a b c d company history. (No longer available online.) Pfleiderer AG, Düsseldorf, 2013, archived from the original on July 15, 2013 ; Retrieved February 16, 2013 . 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 / pfleiderer.com
  5. ↑ Milestones in the company's history. Pfleiderer Teisnach GmbH & Co. KG, 2011, accessed on February 16, 2013 .
  6. ^ Neumarkter Tagblatt dated August 3, 1960, quoted from Norbert Jung: Quadrat III, Grave Row XIII, 28–30 - a contribution to the history of the Heilbronn entrepreneurial family Gustav Adolf Pfleiderer , Heilbronn 2010, p. 4.
  7. ↑ End of an era: Ernst-Herbert Pfleiderer retires. nordbayern.de, May 8, 2010, accessed on February 16, 2013 .
  8. ^ Pfleiderer AG, Neumarkt (ed.): Nine-Month Report as of September 30, 2002 . 2002 ( online PDF).
  9. ↑ Kunz takeover by Pfleiderer perfect . In: SN-Verlag Michael Steinert (Ed.): BTH Heimtex . No. 2005-07 / 08 , 2005 ( online ).
  10. ^ Pfleiderer boss Hans Overdiek: Back in life. Handelsblatt, September 24, 2007, accessed on February 16, 2013 .
  11. ↑ Pfleiderer's restructuring plan failed. Handelsblatt, March 27, 2012, accessed on February 16, 2013 .
  12. ↑ Pfleiderer AG applies to open insolvency proceedings. (No longer available online.) Pfleiderer AG, March 28, 2012, archived from the original on August 30, 2013 ; Retrieved February 16, 2013 . 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 / www.pfleiderer.com
  13. ↑ Pfleiderer finds savior in an unknown investor. Financial Times Deutschland, August 16, 2012, archived from the original on August 18, 2012 ; Retrieved February 16, 2013 .
  14. ↑ Unknown investor saves Pfleiderer. August 17, 2012, accessed February 16, 2013 .
  15. ↑ http://www.handelsblatt.com/finanzen/maerkte/aktien/boersengang-gescheitert-investoren- Lassen-pfleiderer-abblitzen/ 12490956.html
  16. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from October 13, 2016 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 / www.pfleiderer.com

Coordinates: 49 ° 15 ′ 52 "  N , 11 ° 27 ′ 44"  E