Völkl (company)
| Marker Dalbello Völkl (International) GmbH | |
|---|---|
| legal form | GmbH |
| founding | 1884 |
| Seat | Baar ZG , Switzerland |
| management | Dr. Christoph Bronder |
| Branch | Sporting goods |
| Website | voelkl.com |
Völkl is a German manufacturer of winter sports articles . As a subsidiary of the investment company Kohlberg & Co. , the Marker-Dalbello-Völkl Group combines two of the world's brands in alpine winter sports with Marker and Völkl and employs around 900 people.
history
The company was founded by Georg Völkl in 1884. Initially the company manufactured carriages , later production was expanded to include boats and sleds . In 1923 the company was handed over to Franz Völkl and in the same year the first alpine ski was built under the name Vöstra . In 1952 the family was again handed over to Franz Völkl jun., And serial ski production was also started. In 1986 the first prototype of a snowboard was built and in 1993 the serial production of snowboards for the companies Santa Cruz , Sims , Nitro Snowboards and Radair began . In the same year the first broad ski explosive for deep snow skiing was built. In the meantime, in 1992, Völkl was taken over by the Swiss Gregor Furrer (brother of Art Furrer ) and Hans-Dieter Cleven , which led to a later relocation of the headquarters to Switzerland - also for tax reasons. The first Völkl snowboard line was sold in 1997. In 1999 the new modern factory in Straubing (Bavaria) was inaugurated and Völkl Tennis GmbH was founded with the support of Boris Becker . In 2000, the binding manufacturer Marker , founded in 1952, was acquired and restructured. In addition, the product range was supplemented by the functional winter sports clothing Völkl Performance Wear . In the following year, the patented and fully integrated MOTION ski binding system was presented by Marker and Völkl . By October 2004, the joint management of Völkl and Marker was outsourced to Baar ZG in Switzerland . In May 2017, the previous owner Newell Brands sold the company to Kohlberg & Co.
Market shares
550 employees at the Straubing plant last produced around 460,000 pairs of skis per year, so in 2006 the company had a world market share of around 10 percent. In addition, snowboards are also manufactured, the production of which has meanwhile been outsourced to China .
The company currently ranks fourth on the international market and third in the German core market with an increasing share. In the high-volume US market, Völkl was able to maintain its second place in 2005. Völkl also has the second largest market share in Italy and Switzerland .
literature
- Franz Völkl , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 42/1996 of October 7, 1996, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of the article freely available)