Germany is home to many well-known brands that once represented Germany but now belong to other countries. Let’s take a look at some familiar brands that are no longer from Germany!
Gardena
For all gardening enthusiasts, Gardena has been one of the most important brands for decades. The company was founded in Ulm in 1961 and was so successful that it was listed on the stock market in 1996. The founders, the Kress and Kastner families, hold the majority of the shares. In 1999, they sold it to Swedish investment company IK. I K delisted Gardena from the stock exchange in 2003 and sold the company to Husqvarna of Sweden in 2006. Husqvarna is one of the world's leading manufacturers of forestry and gardening equipment.
Grundig
Grundig suffered a similar fate to AEG. The Nuremberg television maker, once the epitome of Germany's economic miracle, could no longer keep up with Asian rivals such as Samsung and Sony and filed for bankruptcy in 2004. The majority of the company's shares went to Turkey's Beko Group . Since then, Beko has tried many times to restore Grundig to its former glory, but all attempts have been unsuccessful.
Leitz
But in 1998 the company was sold to the Luxembourg-based Esselte-Gruppe, a leading global manufacturer of office products. This day of equity handover was not a happy one for Letz and its employees. Many of the original 2,500 employees were laid off. Today, only around 530 people work for Leitz. The turnover also dropped from 280 million euros in the year of the sale to 206 million euros in 2016, but has been rising again in recent years.
Pelikan
In Germany in the 19th century, it became customary to name office product manufacturers after large birds (see #14 below, “Uhu,” referring to the eagle owl, a type of owl, and also the name of a German brand of glue) . Pelikan (Pelikan), a pen manufacturer founded in Hanover in 1838, is no exception. Pelikan did well for about 140 years, and then ran out of money. In 1984 the company was sold to the Swiss company Condorpart AG and one third of the employees were laid off. After several changes of ownership, Pelikan now belongs to Pelikan International Bhd. from Malaysia and is also listed on the stock exchange there.
Puma
Puma is the world's third largest sporting goods manufacturer after Adidas and Nike. Many people should have heard of this. The predecessor of PUMA was the "Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory" jointly established by the two brothers Rudolf Dassler and Adolf Dassler. Because of a conflict during World War II, the two parted ways. The younger brother Adolf founded Adidas, and the older brother Rudolf founded Puma in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria in 1948. The company's headquarters are still there today, but the majority of shares are now held by the French Kering-Gruppe .
Tempo
Depot handkerchief paper was first registered as a trademark by the Vereinigte Papierwerke in Nuremberg in 1929 and is famous for its flexible paper. It was so successful that "Tempo" has since become a synonym for toilet paper in German . But because the brand's founder was Jewish, Depot was forced to sell it during the Nazi era. Depot's new owner, Gustav Schickedanz, founder of Quelle, has been running the company since then. In 1994, the American Procter & Gamble Group acquired the Depot brand from Quelle. In 2007, the brand was sold to the Swedish SCA Group, which transferred it to its subsidiary Essity in 2017.
Uhu
Uhu was the first brand to produce synthetic resin transparent adhesive since 1932 and has achieved the success to match. Today, the glue is still sold in 125 countries. However, it no longer belongs to the founding Fischer family from Bühl in Baden-Württemberg. They sold the brand to the British Beecham-Gruppe in 1971. After some turbulent times, Uhu has been owned since 1994 by the Bolton Group, a Milan-based consumer goods manufacturer.
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