Boot King

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Stiefelkönig branch on Mariahilfer Strasse in Vienna

Stiefelkönig is an Austrian shoe retailer founded by Anton Herzl in Graz , the capital of Styria , in 1919 , which remained family-owned until 2003 and has been part of Leder & Schuh AG , Austria's largest shoe retailer, since 2011 . Stiefelkönig describes himself as a "premium shoe retailer".

In 1919 Anton Herzl founded a shoe shop on the noble Joanneumring in Graz. In 1963 his son Manfred Herzl took over the management. In 1966 the first shop outside Graz was opened in Kapfenberg and in 1975 the first shop in the federal capital Vienna followed . In 1978 the shoe retailer Delka, founded in Vienna in 1907, was acquired by the German Bahner Group . In 1987, two new sales lines were founded with the discounter Turbo Schuh and Palazina . In 1988 and 1992, respectively, the Oberschuh and Rex branches were taken over. In the following years branches were opened in Slovenia and Slovakia.

In 1994 the company had over 165 branches and specialist shops in Austria, Russia , Slovakia , Croatia , Slovenia and Hungary . Six chain stores sold numerous own brands. The group of companies had a turnover of 2.6 billion Schillings (almost 190 million euros) with around 1,800 employees. However, the return was weak. In 1997 there was even an operational minus of 40 million schillings (almost 3 million euros).

After the 29-year-old founding grandson Alexander Herzl, who at that time also belonged to the Steinlechner family to 22.5 percent, directed the fortunes of the company from 2000, it went with around 120 branches in 2003, largely through a conversion of claims into Owned by the house bank Bawag PSK , which in turn was taken over in 2006 by the US investment fund Cerberus Capital Management . In 2004, Stiefelkönig gained international attention with his advertising line with Heidi Klum . In 2007 sales were 140 million euros.

In 2009, Stiefelkönig operated 21 franchises for the Italian Geox . In the same year the company sold its 25 branches of the discounter Turbo Schuh to the German companies Deichmann and kiK .

As part of restructuring measures and concentration on the core business, not least because of the financial crisis, BAWAG has been looking for a buyer for the Stiefelkönig business since 2007, which finally in 2011 with its 70 branches was sold to Leder & Schuh AG , which includes Humanic , went.

The German Ara Shoes , which already had seven stores in Austria, took over the remaining 35 Delka branches in the same year. In 2013, 37 branches were operated under the name of Stiefelkönig in 22 Austrian cities, five of them in Graz and 10 in Vienna. There were three foreign branches in Bratislava , Ljubljana and Zagreb . The branch on Joanneumring in Graz will be discontinued at the beginning of 2014 after 95 years.

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