Black group

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
ALPHA Schwarz Beteiligungs-GmbH

logo
legal form GmbH
Seat Neckarsulm , GermanyGermanyGermany 
management Klaus Gehrig ( general partner of Schwarz Unternehmensstreuhand KG)
Number of employees 458,000 (2020)
sales 113.3 billion euros (2019/20)
Branch Grocery retail
Website Black group

Participations within the Schwarz Group

The Schwarz Group has an annual turnover of 113 billion euros, the largest (2019) retail group in Europe . The German retail group based in Neckarsulm , Baden-Württemberg, controls the retail companies Lidl and Kaufland as the parent company .

Company history (since 1930)

Lidl & Co. Südfrüchtenhandlung at Sülmerstrasse 54 in Heilbronn (around 1905)

In 1930 the Heilbronn businessman Josef Schwarz (1903–1977) joined Lidl & Co. Südfrüchtenhandlung as a personally liable partner ( general partner ) . The company was renamed Lidl & Schwarz KG and expanded into a food wholesaler for the Heilbronn-Franken region .

After Lidl & Schwarz was completely destroyed in World War II in 1944, it was rebuilt within ten years. In 1954, Lidl & Schwarz joined the A&O retail chain . In 1954, the company again had its own domicile in Heilbronn.

Josef Schwarz's only son, Dieter Schwarz , completed a commercial apprenticeship in the food wholesaler Lidl & Schwarz KG in Heilbronn from 1958 to 1960 after graduating from high school . At that time, his father was the sole managing director of the company. In 1962 Dieter Schwarz became an authorized signatory and in 1963 a personally liable partner of Lidl & Schwarz KG in Heilbronn. In 1972 a new company headquarters was opened in Neckarsulm .

Foundation of the discount group Lidl (1973)

In 1973 Dieter Schwarz opened his first discount store in Ludwigshafen am Rhein on Mundenheimer Strasse. Because he could not easily take on the name Lidl for legal reasons and to avoid the pun " black market ", he secured himself legally by buying the name rights from retired vocational school teacher and painter Ludwig Lidl for 1000  DM . After Lidl's expansion within Germany, Lidl's entry into the European market began in 1988.

Currently (2020) there are over 11,000 Lidl branches in Europe and the USA , making Lidl the largest discounter in the world in terms of the number of branches.

Founding of the Kaufland supermarket chain (1984)

In 1968 Dieter Schwarz and his father opened the first supermarket under the name "Handelshof" in Backnang in Swabia . In 1984 the very first supermarket opened in Neckarsulm under the then new name “Kaufland”. All Handelshof supermarkets were renamed Kaufland. After the change in the GDR in 1989/90 , Kaufland expanded massively into the new federal states. The first East German Kaufland supermarket was set up in Meißen in 1990 . Today Kaufland is the market leader in the supermarket segment in the new federal states. In 1998 the first Kaufland branch abroad was opened in Kladno in the Czech Republic . Kaufland operates further branches in Central and Eastern European countries.

In Europe there are currently (2020) over 1270 Kaufland supermarkets.

Schwarz Group (1977 until today)

When Josef Schwarz died in 1977 at the age of 74, Dieter Schwarz took over the food wholesaler Lidl & Schwarz KG . At this point in time, Dieter Schwarz already had 30 Lidl branches. In 1976 Klaus Gehrig became managing director under the company owner Dieter Schwarz. The company's activities were divided into the area of ​​discount stores (small areas) under the name Lidl and the area of ​​full-range retailers (large areas) Kaufland . When Dieter Schwarz withdrew from management, he transferred his tax-saving stake to the Dieter Schwarz Foundation, whose purpose is, among other things, to promote science and research, art and culture.

Since 2004, Klaus Gehrig has been the sole general partner of Schwarz Unternehmensstreuhand KG and thus head of the Schwarz Group. Klaus Gehrig is to remain CEO until he is 75 years old (in 2023). A successor should have been incorporated in the last two years. Who that will be is still open. The owners of the Schwarz Beteiligungs-GmbH are the Dieter-Schwarz-Stiftung gGmbH (99.9% of the shares) and the Schwarz Unternehmensstreuhand KG (0.1% of the shares); the latter holds 100% of the voting rights. The Schwarz Group is based in Neckarsulm. Online trading is operated by Lidl Digital International (formerly Schwarz E-Commerce ), a sister company of Lidl. With retroactive effect to the beginning of 2018, Germany’s fifth largest waste disposal company Tönsmeier was taken over by Green Cycle, a subsidiary of the Schwarz Group, in July 2018.

The Schwarz Group is currently (2020) the largest retail group in Europe in terms of annual sales and employs around 458,000 people.

Web links

Commons : Black Group  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stuttgart District Court HRB 104073
  2. ↑ Gehring is the new Lidl and Kaufland boss . handelsblatt.com, March 2, 2004
  3. ↑ a b Lidl and Kaufland: Schwarz Group writes record sales. In: Spiegel Online . July 31, 2020, accessed August 11, 2020 .
  4. ↑ dde: There are now 195 billionaires living in Germany. In: welt.de . August 24, 2017. Retrieved October 7, 2018 .
  5. ↑ See Global Powers of Retailing studies from 2015, 2016 and 2017; Top 10 global retailers . Deloitte , press release, September 26, 2014, accessed February 13, 2017.
  6. ↑ Kaufland is fighting the digital revolution in retail ( Memento from March 5, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) (March 5, 2018)
  7. ↑ Dieter Schwarz is 70 years old today. News for business. Information for decision-makers in the Heilbronn-Franken region, September 24, 2009, archived from the original on February 6, 2013 ; accessed on April 16, 2017 .
  8. ↑ Karsten Kilian: Branded Products . Markenlexikon.de, accessed on April 16, 2017.
  9. ↑ Expansion in Australia: Down Under is looking forward to Kaufland . ( handelsblatt.com [accessed April 24, 2017]).
  10. ↑ Lidl opens its first branches in the USA. In: Spiegel Online . June 15, 2017. Retrieved June 21, 2017 .
  11. ^ Date of birth according to Manfred Stockburger: The turning point at Kaufland. Neckarsulm How CEO Kaudewitz wants to make the grocer attractive again. In: Heilbronn voice . May 14, 2016 ( from Stimme.de [accessed on May 15, 2016]).
  12. ↑ Gehring is the new Lidl and Kaufland boss . handelsblatt.com, March 2, 2004
  13. ↑ Klaus Gehrig in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)
  14. ↑ https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/lidl-schwarz-klaus-gehring-1.4444049
  15. ↑ Karsten Langer: Dieter Schwarz: Aldi's arch enemy . manager-magazin.de, March 2, 2004.
  16. ↑ - ( Memento of April 27, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  17. ↑ Mindener Tageblatt, July 2nd, 2018: Retail giant buys Tönsmeier Group .

Coordinates: 49 ° 10 ′ 21.2 ″  N , 9 ° 13 ′ 22.9 ″  E