Thalia books

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Thalia Books GmbH

logo
legal form GmbH
founding 1919
Seat Hagen , GermanyGermanyGermany 
management Michael Busch (Chairman), Hartmut Falter, Roland Kölbl, Ingo Kretzschmar, Klaus Ortner, Markus Steib, Marcus Droste
Number of employees Around 6,000 (2019)
sales 1.2 billion euros (2019)
Branch Book trade
Website thalia.de

Herder / Thalia bookstore in Freiburg im Breisgau (2016)

The Thalia Books GmbH (to October 2015: Thalia Holding GmbH ), headquartered in Hagen is a book trade - and service companies. After the merger with Mayersche Buchhandlung in 2019, the company now owns more than 340 bookstores in Germany and Austria as well as 50% of the shares in the more than 30 bookstores of Orell Füssli Thalia AG in Switzerland. The Thalia Group is (measured in terms of sales) the market leader in the retail book trade in German-speaking countries.

history

Thalia was founded in Hamburg in 1919; In 1997 the company had 12 branches in Hamburg. On March 20, 1997, it opened a branch in Bremen. In 2001 Thalia and the Phönix-Montanus book retailing group, which belongs to Douglas Holding, announced their merger. The group operates under the uniform brand name Thalia. Since September 2005, the Austrian Thalia acquisitions have been trading under Thalia.at and the Swiss Jäggi Group under Thalia.ch. At the beginning of 2006, Thalia, as the market leader in German-speaking countries, had a market share of almost seven percent. After the merger of the Hugendubel bookstores with the more than 350 sales outlets of the Weltbild publishing group , Thalia fell back to second place behind the newly formed book trade group DBH .

As part of the 50th  IFA , Thalia presented its OYO e-book reader , which went on sale in Germany in autumn 2010, earlier than Amazon's competing device ( Kindle ). However, on April 21, 2011, Thalia did not yet offer a marketplace for direct publications. From the end of November 2012, Bookeen's Odyssey HD FrontLight e-book reader, a competing product for Amazon's Kindle Paperwhite, was on offer.

Until 2012, the shareholders of Thalia Holding GmbH were Könnecke-Beteiligungs-GmbH (25%) and Buch & Medien GmbH (75%). The latter was 100% owned by Douglas Holding . Members of the Könnecke family, which acquired the Thalia company in 1931, are shareholders of the Könnecke-Beteiligungs-GmbH. Until the end of 2012, Thalia belonged entirely to Douglas Holding. In the same year, the US financial investor Advent joined the group and the Douglas founding family Kreke retained a 20 percent stake in the company.

In March 2013, Thalia launched the tolino brand together with partners from the bookselling industry and Deutsche Telekom as a technology partner and has since released numerous e-readers. In 2013, Thalia also merged with the Swiss book retailer Orell Füssli. Both companies have a 50% stake in Orell Füssli Thalia AG.

In March 2015, Buch.de was merged with Thalia Holding and is no longer an independent company. The shareholders' meeting of Thalia Holding GmbH on October 6, 2015 decided to change the company's name to Thalia Bücher GmbH . In 2016 Thalia will be family-run again. A consortium of owners led by the Herder family, the Kreke family, the entrepreneur Leif Göritz and the managing partner of Thalia, Michael Busch, acquired the company.

Logo until 2018

In 2019 Mayersche and Thalia announce their merger. The company employs a total of around 6,000 people. Thalia celebrated its 100th anniversary in August 2019; At the end of the anniversary year, a gala took place in Hamburg in November 2019

Business model

In addition to the bookstores, Thalia also operates an online shop as well as a specially developed mobile app and the tolino eReader. The company's omni-channel strategy aims to interlink the various sales channels and ensure an uncomplicated shopping experience. Thalia is responding to the changed buying behavior with services such as Click & Collect and Reserve & Collect, mobile payment in the bookstore or the option to buy eBooks in the bookstore.

Group structure

Since July 2016, after the completion of extensive renovation measures, a consortium led by the Herder family of publishers has owned most of the Thalia Group; the Douglas founding family Kreke still holds a minority stake.

Takeovers and investments (selection)

  • 1979 Participation in the Montanus aktuell group
  • 1988 Takeover of the Phönix University Bookstore , Bielefeld, (1994 merger with Montanus to form Phönix-Montanus GmbH )
  • 1996 Acquisition of the Herder bookstores, Münster in Westphalia and Freiburg im Breisgau
  • 1999 Participation in the online retailer Buch.de
  • 2000 Acquisition of the Swiss bookstores W. Jäggi (based in Basel) and Stauffacher (based in Bern)
  • 2001 Phönix-Montanus and Thalia merge to form Thalia Holding GmbH
  • 2002 Takeover of the Austrian book retail chain Amadeus , takeover of Bol.de (by buch.de)
  • 2003 Participation in the Swiss Zur alten Post (ZAP) AG (5 branches in the canton of Valais) and takeover of the book trade groups Palm & Enke , Mencke & Blaesing (both in Erlangen) and the Jena university bookstore
  • 2004 Participation in the Kober Löffler Group, takeover of the Bouvier / Gonski book trade chain , which is active in the Rhineland, and the Campe book store , Nuremberg
  • 2006 Takeover of Reinhold Gondrom GmbH & Co. KG with 26 branches, the scientific mail order bookshop Dr. Claus Steiner , Idstein am Taunus with ( B2B business) maintaining the location, the Wagner bookstore in Innsbruck and a 50.1% stake in the bookstore Grüttefien GmbH , Varel , with 18 bookstores and a turnover of 17 million euros
  • 2007 Acquisition of the Buch & Kunst Group, Dresden, with 44 bookstores mainly in East Germany and North Rhine-Westphalia and an annual turnover of around 60 million euros from the financial investor Barclays Private Equity , Meissner Bücher AG from the AZ Medien Group and from Haus der Bücher Spaethe , ( Moers ), the bookstore Franz Potthoff ( Bergisch Gladbach ), bookstore Köhl ( Brühl ) and, via Grüttefien, the bookstore Bräuer in Lemgo
  • 2008 Takeover of Buch-Kaiser in Karlsruhe and renaming of the acquired bookstores to Thalia.de
  • In March 2009, Thalia announced the closure of Buch-Kaiser in Karlsruhe for 2010, thus concentrating its offer on two Thalia mega branches
  • In March 2013 a joint venture between Orell Füssli and Thalia was announced. In autumn 2013, the Orell Füssli Thalia (OFT) joint venture , now the largest book retail chain in Switzerland, commenced operations. The Thalia branches in Switzerland are gradually being converted to the Orell Füssli brand.
  • In April 2014, Thalia initiated a squeeze-out at the general meeting of Buch.de Internetstores AG in order to take over the company in full. In 2015, the now wholly owned subsidiary Buch.de was dissolved and merged with Thalia Holding. Buch.de was finally discontinued in May 2018.
  • Since January 2017, Thalia has taken over a total of more than 20 bookstores. In some cases, it continues to operate together with the previous owners.
  • In January 2019, Thalia and Mayersche Buchhandlung merged . Also in January 2019, Thalia will take over the Jos. Fisherman that has operated for 150 years.
  • Twelve Decius locations in Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt will continue from February 2020.

Engagement and reading promotion

Thalia has been the exclusive book partner of the largest international literature festival lit.Cologne since 2009 and a partner of lit.Ruhr since 2017. In addition, the company has been on the Board of Trustees of the Reading Foundation since 2018. With more than 3,000 events a year, the company is one of the largest promoters of reading and literature in Germany. Thalia is also committed to promoting reading locally and cooperates with public institutions.

criticism

The intense competition in the book trade and the trend towards chain stores have for years been accompanied by the acquisition of owner-managed bookstores and the establishment of new bookstores by rapidly expanding chains such as the Thalia Group, the Weltbild publishing group or the Mayersche Buchhandlung .

The central purchasing power of large suppliers such as Thalia is increasingly seen as being able to influence publishers' sales conditions, which in particular could put smaller publishers under pressure. In 2006, Thalia was criticized for suggesting that the publishers should contribute financially to the expansion and establishment of new company branches. More than a decade later, such requests are still part of the publisher's policy. Another criticism, attempts Thalia, by attacking the book price to force owner-managed bookstores out of business. From 2007 there was resistance to the Thalia Group's plans to open a large branch in the listed Metropol-Kino in Bonn, which was to be prevented by a referendum with 16,000 signatures as part of the Rettet das Metropol initiative . However, the protests were unsuccessful and the controversial Thalia branch was opened after restoration work in autumn 2010 and preserved as a cultural site. Also in 2010, Thalia Austria was accused of trying to force a local publishing bookseller to sell by threatening to terminate existing supplier relationships.

In 2017, Thalia sent invoices for a flat-rate advertising subsidy to around 1,000 publishers. Thalia refers to the future development potential and the "long-term safeguarding of our business relationships" with the aim of bringing the products offered by Thalia's suppliers to customers with a wide reach. After various revelations in the Börsenblatt about the practices, the company is accused by specialist journalists of “the methodology of protection rackets”, so that Thalia will probably be considered the “muse of the mafia” in the future.

Web links

Commons : Thalia  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Imprint | Thalia. Retrieved June 15, 2020 .
  2. ↑ The milestones in the Thalia company history Website of Thalia Bücher GmbH. Retrieved January 6, 2020.
  3. ↑ Thalia Mayersche sales up to 2019. Accessed June 15, 2020 .
  4. ^ Approval of the merger between Thalia and Mayersche Buchhandlung. May 9, 2019, accessed November 28, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Market leader Thalia becomes new partner of Shopkick In: Investorszene , October 20, 2016, accessed on March 8, 2017.
  6. ↑ Mario Brück: Book professionals take over Thalia . Wirtschaftswoche. July 11, 2016. Retrieved August 2, 2017.
  7. ↑ Heinz-Peter Petrat: Thalia closes in Sögestraße , Weser-Kurier, August 28, 2013, accessed on August 29, 2013.
  8. ↑ Benno F. Schnitzler: The Montanus Chronicle - From Montanus Aktuell to Thalia (1969-2002) . Ed .: Montanus Aktuell. 2010.
  9. ↑ Aiming to double market share , Capital
  10. ^ Bertelsmann is considering alliance in the German book trade , FAZ September 26, 2006.
  11. ↑ IFA 2010: Thalia presents ebook readers for 139 euros . netzwelt.de, September 7, 2010, accessed on September 9, 2010
  12. ↑ Amazon is now selling its Kindle reader and the digital editions for it directly in Germany. The range is more extensive than the book trade's e-book portal. . Retrieved April 20, 2011.
  13. ↑ We offer aspiring authors a launch pad . Retrieved April 21, 2011.
  14. ↑ TEST: Bookeen HD Frontlight (Thalia Edition) In: allesebook , November 27, 2012, accessed on March 8, 2017.
  15. ↑ Merger with Orell Füssli: Thalia provides the boss. In: Handelszeitung.ch. June 6, 2013, accessed December 18, 2019 .
  16. ^ Register announcement, District Court Hagen, HRB 9698, October 27, 2015, accessed on June 13, 2016.
  17. ↑ Herder joins Thalia. In: boersenblatt.net. July 11, 2016, accessed on January 16, 2020 (German).
  18. ↑ Megafusion in the book trade. January 10, 2019, accessed January 16, 2020 (eng).
  19. ↑ The party of the reading instigators. November 7, 2019, accessed November 28, 2019 .
  20. ↑ Thalia wants to push the omni-channel strategy further. In: book report online. October 18, 2016, accessed February 27, 2020 .
  21. ↑ Matthias Hell: Thalia has worked her way out of the crisis. In: Internet World Business. Retrieved February 27, 2020 .
  22. ↑ Thalia gets new owners: From problem child to trendy business. In: www.handelsblatt.com. Retrieved December 10, 2018 .
  23. ↑ The milestones in the Thalia company history. In: www.thalia.de. Retrieved December 10, 2018 .
  24. ↑ Herder joins Thalia. July 11, 2016, accessed December 18, 2019 .
  25. ↑ Benno F. Schnitzler: The Montanus Chronicle - From Montanus Aktuell to Thalia 1969 to 2002 .
  26. ↑ Thalia takes over the BUCH & KUNST group. Boersenblatt.net, December 27, 2006, accessed November 28, 2008 .
  27. ↑ Thalia is allowed to take over Buch-Kaiser. Boersenblatt.net, April 30, 2008, accessed March 30, 2009 .
  28. ↑ The House of the Book is now called Thalia. Boersenblatt.net, September 3, 2008, accessed November 28, 2008 .
  29. ↑ Thalia closes a Kaiser branch in Karlsruhe. BuchMarkt.de, March 25, 2009, accessed March 30, 2009 .
  30. ^ Basel: The name Thalia is disappearing - badische-zeitung.de. Retrieved July 20, 2013 .
  31. ↑ Thalia merges online shops: buch.de goes to thalia.de In: boersenblatt.net, May 16, 2018, accessed on May 27, 2018.
  32. ↑ I'll buy something. In: boersenblatt.net. October 23, 2019, accessed February 27, 2020 .
  33. ↑ Thalia and Mayersche go together / Megafusion in book trade. Retrieved January 10, 2019 . The merger was approved by the Federal Cartel Office in May 2019 .
  34. ^ Owners Stefan Fischer and Wolfgang Hommel hand over bookstore to Thalia. The traditional bookstore remains as a cultural focal point in Jülich. Retrieved January 11, 2019 .
  35. ^ Off for regional chain stores . In: boersenblatt.net. August 13, 2019, accessed February 27, 2020 .
  36. ↑ Thalia becomes a new partner of lit.COLOGNE. October 8, 2008, accessed February 14, 2020 .
  37. ↑ lit.RUHR partner. Retrieved February 14, 2020 .
  38. ↑ Funke Mediengruppe, Thalia and spectrumK are new to the Foundation Council of Reading. June 20, 2018, accessed February 14, 2020 .
  39. ↑ Excellent bookstores 2019/2020. In: boersenverein-bayern.de. Retrieved February 19, 2020 .
  40. ↑ Interview with the managing director of Thalia (Deutschlandradio Kultur)
  41. ↑ Wieland Freund: The buck as a gardener . In: Die Welt , November 7, 2005. Retrieved September 23, 2015.
  42. ↑ Printing Methods
  43. ^ A b Andreas Platthaus: traditional house with Mafia methods. In: FAZ , October 30, 2017, accessed on the same day.
  44. ↑ spiegel.de September 28, 2004: Undermining the law
  45. ↑ The court should examine
  46. ↑ THALIA's business practices in Austria
  47. ↑ Bookstore and café in the Metropol? (Kölnische Rundschau Online)
  48. ↑ Thalia soon in Metropol Bonn (Börsenblatt Online)
  49. ↑ Monument protection takes precedence over profit maximization (rheinraum-online) ( Memento from February 20, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  50. ↑ Thalia could move into the Metropol in Bonn in a year
  51. ↑ GA BONN: GA listed: You should know these bookshops in Bonn. Retrieved June 2, 2020 .
  52. ↑ This is how your neighbors sell themselves. April 11, 2012, accessed on June 2, 2020 (German).
  53. ↑ Spiegel.de: Printing methods
  54. ↑ Börsenblatt : Invoices without legal basis dated August 3, 2017, accessed on September 27, 2017.
  55. ↑ Thalia retroactively demands advertising cost subsidy flat rate / post from Hagen. Retrieved June 2, 2020 .