Franz Haniel & Cie.

Last updated
Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH
Type GmbH
Industry Conglomerate
Founded1756
FounderJan Willem Noot
Headquarters Duisburg, Germany
Key people
Thomas Schmidt
(CEO)
Doreen Nowotne
(Chairman)
RevenueIncrease2.svg 4.223 billion EUR [1]
Decrease2.svg -108 million EUR [1]
Total assets Decrease2.svg 6.570 million EUR [1]
OwnerHaniel family
Number of employees
Increase2.svg 21.519 [1]
Website www.haniel.de

Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH is a German family-owned investment holding company headquartered in Duisburg, Germany. It was founded in 1756 in the city of Ruhrort, now Duisburg. Today, it is one of Europe's largest privately owned family businesses. The Haniel family consists of more than 600 family members and is considered one of the wealthiest families in Germany. [2]

Contents

History

Beginnings and foundation

The company was founded in Ruhrort by Jan Willem Noot and began as a colonial goods store. Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, signed the leasehold for the land on 10 February 1756. This year is used as the founding year. Jan Willem Noot´s daughter Aletta and her husband, Jacob Haniel, took on the business after his death.

19th century

Their youngest son Franz Haniel renamed the company and became the main driving force. With his brother Gerhard Haniel they took over the business at the beginning of the nineteenth century and expanded in many business areas, including merchant shipping, mining and trade.

The marriages of their sisters helped Gerhard Haniel and Franz Haniel to get in contact with their brothers in law Heinrich Huyssen and Gottlob Jacobi. Together the four men founded Hüttengewerkschaft Jacobi, Haniel & Huyssen (JHH) in 1808, which later became the Gutehoffnungshütte stock corporation (GHH).

JHH produced its first complete steam engines in 1820, and set up a shipyard in Ruhrort in 1829. Between 1834 and 1870, the company pioneered modern mining in the Ruhr area.

20th century

By 1900 Haniel was active in mining, coal trading, shipping and forwarding. In 1917 Franz Haniel & Co. became Franz Haniel & Cie. GMBH, with the purpose of handling the trading and transport activities of its shareholders as a decentralized holding company. Since 1920 Karl Haniel became company leader. In 1921 Haniel began to trade in artificial fertilizers, and in 1936 it began producing synthetic gasoline made from coal.

Allied bombardments in World War II caused serious losses. Thanks to serious efforts Haniel managed to relaunch shipping and trading as well as the coalmines and steelyards.

In the 1960s Haniel slowly started to divest its heavy industry and gasoline holdings. The family used the money to finance the entry and expansion of new business areas such as pharmaceutical wholesale (Celesio), recycling of industrial waste and the investment in the wholesale and retail chain Metro AG.

In the 1980s the company sold its remaining shares of the Gutehoffnungshütte followed by the withdrawal from the internal trading, fueling and shipping operations.

21st century

In September 2011, Haniel owned 34 percent of Metro AG; the Schmidt-Ruthenbeck family owned 16%. CEO Eckhard Cordes feared for his job. [3]

Divisions

Financial Investments

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Duisburg</span> City in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

Duisburg is a city in the Ruhr metropolitan area of the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Lying on the confluence of the Rhine and the Ruhr rivers in the center of the Rhine-Ruhr Region, Duisburg is the 5th largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and the 15th-largest city in Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MAN SE</span> German mechanical engineering company

MAN SE was a manufacturing and engineering company based in Munich, Germany. Its primary output was commercial vehicles and diesel engines through its MAN Truck & Bus and MAN Latin America divisions, and participation in the manufacturer Sinotruk.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Metro AG</span> German multinational wholesaling company

Metro AG is a German multinational company based in Düsseldorf which operates business membership only cash and carry stores primarily under the Metro brand. Until 2020 it was also active in general retail business through Real division, which was sold to an investor consortium.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region</span> Urban area in Germany

The Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region is the largest metropolitan region in Germany, with over ten million inhabitants. A polycentric conurbation with several major urban concentrations, the region covers an area of 7,110 square kilometres (2,750 sq mi), entirely within the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region spreads from the Ruhr area (Dortmund-Bochum-Essen-Duisburg) in the north to the urban areas of the cities of Mönchengladbach, Düsseldorf, Wuppertal, Leverkusen, Cologne, and Bonn in the south. The location of the Rhine-Ruhr at the heart of the European Blue Banana makes it well connected to other major European cities and metropolitan areas such as the Randstad, the Flemish Diamond and the Frankfurt Rhine Main Region.

Orell Füssli is a Swiss banknotes printing and bookselling company, established by Christoph Froschauer in 1519 as a book printer and publisher. It is currently operating in many print-related segments, such as security printing, bookselling and publishing, with security printing being a primary contemporary product of company. Company's shares are traded on SIX Swiss Exchange since 1897. It is the oldest continuously publicly traded company of Switzerland.

McKesson Europe

McKesson Europe AG, with its headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, is a leading international wholesale and retail company and provider of logistics and services in the pharmaceutical and healthcare sectors. The company had around 37,000 employees at the end of the 2019 financial year and is represented in 13 countries in Europe. In the 2019 financial year the company achieved a turnover of EUR 21.18 billion. The majority shareholder of the company is the US-based McKesson Corporation, which holds a share of 77.01%. The remaining 22.99% of shares are available on the open market. Kevin Kettler, a US citizen, has been Chairman of McKesson Europe since 1 November 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Makro</span> Brand of warehouse clubs

Makro is a Dutch international brand of warehouse clubs, also called cash and carry stores. Makro was founded by SHV Holdings, a Dutch conglomerate based in Utrecht in partnership with German company Metro AG, with the first warehouse club opened in Amsterdam in 1968. Currently, ownership of the worldwide chain of stores is split between different companies like Metro AG in Europe, SHV Holdings in Latin America and CP All in Asia. In many countries, access to stores is restricted to business customers, and the stores are not open to the general public.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex</span> Large former industrial site in the city of Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

The Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex is a large former industrial site in the city of Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The first coal mine on the premises was founded in 1847, and mining activities took place from 1851 until December 23, 1986. For decades, starting in the late 1950s, the two parts of the site, Zollverein Coal Mine and Zollverein Coking Plant, ranked among the largest of their kinds in Europe. Shaft 12, built in the New Objectivity style, was opened in 1932 and is considered an architectural and technical masterpiece, earning it a reputation as the "most beautiful coal mine in the world".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heitkamp BauHolding</span>

The Heitkamp BauHolding GmbH with headquarters in Herne, North Rhine-Westphalia, is a Gmbh — equivalent to a limited liability company in the US or limited liability partnership in the UK — involved in specialized construction work in various construction sectors. It is a holding company with 1,200 total employees across all of its locations and generates US$365.77 million in sales. There are 6 companies in the Heitkamp BauHolding GmbH group of companies.

Narva was a 2,044 GRT cargo ship that was built in 1943 as Aletta Noot by Gävle Varvs & Verkstads Nya AB, Gävle, Sweden for German owners. She was seized by the Allies at Flensburg, Germany in May 1945, passed to the Ministry of War Transport (MoWT) and renamed Empire Confederation. In 1946, she was sold into merchant service and renamed Narva. On 22 December 1957, she foundered whilst going to the aid of another ship in distress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the Ruhr</span> Aspect of history

The actual boundaries of the Ruhr vary slightly depending on the source, but a good working definition is to define the Lippe and Ruhr as its northern and southern boundaries respectively, the Rhine as its western boundary, and the town of Hamm as the eastern limit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Duisburg-Hochfeld Railway Bridge</span> Railway bridge in Germany

The Duisburg–Hochfeld railway bridge spans the Rhine in the German city of Duisburg on the Duisburg-Ruhrort–Mönchengladbach line. The first bridge was built by the Rhenish Railway Company and put into operation at the end of 1873. It was replaced by a new bridge in 1927, which was badly damaged during the Second World War, but rebuilt and is still serves rail traffic between the Ruhr region and Aachen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hugo Stinnes Schiffahrt</span> German logistics company

Hugo Stinnes Schiffahrt GmbH is a shipping company based in Rostock, Germany which specializes in container service between Germany and South Africa, and in transporting cargo between Northern Europe, the Caribbean and Mexico. It was part of the former conglomerate Hugo Stinnes GmbH.

Michael Schmidt-Ruthenbeck is a German billionaire businessman, together with his brother Rainer, owner of 16% of the retail group Metro AG.

The Bank J. Safra Sarasin Ltd is a Swiss private bank, founded in 1841 and headquartered in Basel. It is currently owned by the Brazilian J. Safra Group, and was formed in its present state in 2013, when Safra Group acquired Bank Sarasin & Co. Ltd, merging it with its Bank Jacob Safra Switzerland subsidiary.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aletta Haniel</span>

Aletta Haniel née Noot (1742–1815), was a German business person. She managed a substantial transport and trade firm in Duisburg in 1782-1809.

Peter Klöckner was a German businessman and industrialist.

Christina Lubinski is a German historian and a full professor at Copenhagen Business School. She is the author and editor of numerous academic books and journals articles. Her work is published in leading international and peer-reviewed journals in the fields of business history, entrepreneurship, management, and organizational studies.

<i>Stadt Frankfurt</i> (1827) Steamboat

Stadt Frankfurt was the first steamboat on the Main and the first steamboat to steam up the Oberrhein to Basel, Switzerland in 1832.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Annual Report 2022 Derived from: https://www.haniel.de/fileadmin/content/1_Unternehmen/Finanzberichte/englisch/Geschaeftsbericht_2022_E.pdf
  2. In: Spiegel online, 10. Oktober 2011 (online)
  3. "Schmidt-Ruthenbeck family backs Metro CEO -magazine". Reuters. 18 September 2011.