Gerresheimer

History

Gerresheimer Glas AG was established in 1864 by Ferdinand Heye (1838-1889). He managed the company until 1888, when it was converted into a stock corporation. The company's name was changed from "Ferd. Heye, Glas-Fabrik, Gerresheim bei Düsseldorf" into "Actien Gesellschaft der Gerresheimer Glashüttenwerke, vorm. Ferd. Heye, Gerresheim bei Düsseldorf". When Heye died in 1889, his son Hermann joined the company's management board aged 23 and was appointed as Board Chairman in 1891. In 1907, Hermann Heye founded "Europäischen Verband der Flaschenfabriken GmbH". The company purchased the patent rights to the Owens machine, the first fully automated bottling machine, for Europe. It was put into operation at Gerresheimer in 1908. Hermann remained at the helm of the company until his death in 1941. From then on, his son-in-law Niels von Bülow headed the company's management board as its oldest member.

In 1959 the US company Owens-Illinois of Toledo (Ohio) acquired a 50.1% stake in Gerresheimer, followed by a majority shareholding in 1971. One year later, in 1972, the company name was changed to "Gerresheimer Glas AG". From November 1985 onwards, Gerresheimer Glas AG became an independent company again. The new majority shareholder was the Westdeutsche Landesbank (WestLB), which acquired around 58% of the shares in Gerresheimer Glas AG from Owens Illinois. VIAG acquired a majority shareholding in WestLB in 1990. In April 2000, when it merged with VEBA, VIAG sold its majority shareholding in Gerresheimer Glass AG to a consortium led by private equity investor Investcorp in order to fund the foundation of E.ON. This meant Gerresheimer Glas being de-listed from the stock exchange in 2003. The US investment group Blackstone bought the company at the end of 2004.

From the 1990s onwards, Gerresheimer underwent a gradual strategic reorientation. Gerresheimer had been one of the biggest European manufacturers of beer and water bottles. However, this division was spun off and the company shifted its focus to special packaging for the pharmaceutical, life sciences and cosmetics industries.

Gerresheimer Glas AG sold the Gerresheim glassworks and five other production plants to the French company BSN glasspack, a subsidiary of the French Danone Group, in 1999. Owens Illinois acquired BSN glasspack and thereby also the glassworks in Gerresheim in December 2004. In August 2005 the US company Owens Illinois (O-I) closed the Gerresheimer glassworks, formerly the world's largest bottle manufacturing facility. In the year 2012 Patrizia Immobilien acquired the site of the former glassworks.The Düsseldorf municipal authority and Patrizia Immobilien are implementing housing development projects in Düsseldorf's former glassmaking district.

The company was taken public (again) in June 2007 after its name had been shortened to Gerresheimer AG. It has been included in the German MDAX stock exchange index since December 2008. The company's headquarters are still in Düsseldorf.

In 2007 Gerresheimer AG bought the Wilden Group, which today trades under the name of Gerresheimer Regensburg GmbH and is part of the Medical Systems business unit in the Plastic & Devices division. In 2011 Gerresheimer acquired Brazilian company Tampas Herméticas Védat, which is now known as Gerresheimer Plásticos São Paulo Ltda. In April 2012 Gerresheimer acquired a majority shareholding in the Indian company Neutral Glass & Allied Industries Pvt. Ltd., followed by Triveni Polymers Ltd. Pvt., a plastic packaging manufacturer for the regulated Indian market, in December of the same year. With five production facilities in South America, four in China and two in India, Gerresheimer is now represented in the fast-growing emerging markets. Uwe Röhrhoff has been CEO of Gerresheimer AG, since 2010 and the Supervisory Board Chairman is Gerhard Schulze.

In September 2015 Gerresheimer acquired Centor.

In November 2015 Gerresheimer sold its tubing operations to the US company Corning Inc. Gerresheimer and Corning have also set up a joint venture to accelerate innovations for the phramaceutical glass packaging market.

Gerresheimer sold Kimble Chase, a joint venture with Chase Scientific Glass, Inc. based in Rockwood, Tennessee/USA, to the Duran Group, a portfolio company of One Equity Partners on November 1, 2016.

Company

Gerresheimer manufactures glass and plastic vials, drug delivery devices, syringe systems, insulin pens and inhalers. The Gerresheimer Group realized revenue of around 1.4 billion euros and had around 11,000 employees at over 40 locations in Europe, North and South America and Asia in 2014.

In the 2015 financial year (December 1, 2014 to November 30, 2015) revenue increased by 6.8 percent to EUR 1,377,2 million. This was again due in particular to revenue growth in the plastics segment.

Locations

Gerresheimer is a company with international operations at more than 40 locations around the world. It operates production plants in Germany, Poland, Denmark, Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland and the Czech Republic. Further production locations are in North and South America (e.g. the USA, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina) as well as China and India.

Literature