Röchling Group

Röchling Group
SE & Co. KG
Industry plastics processing
Founded 1822
Headquarters Mannheim, Germany
Key people
  • Ludger Bartels, President and CEO
  • Erwin Doll
  • Franz Lübbers
  • Steffen Rowold
Revenue 1,6 bln. EUR
Number of employees
 ca. 8400
Website http://www.roechling.com

Headquartered in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, Röchling SE & Co. KG is a medium-sized group, which is globally active in the field of plastics processing.

The Röchling Group is one of the world’s leading companies with a broad technology base that extends to all areas of plastics processing. The Group, which is divided into three divisions: Industrial, Automotive and Medical, currently has 77 locations in 22 countries across Europe, America, and Asia.[1]

The Industrial division’s product range encompasses a spectrum of various semi-finished products ranging from profiles and injection-molded and shaped parts through to machined, assembled, and painted finished parts made from standard and engineering high-performance plastics.[2]

The Automotive division provides automobile manufacturers and system suppliers all over the world with technologically superior plastic applications that are used to solve the current challenges facing the automotive industry: the reduction of emissions, weight, fuel consumption, and costs.[3]

The Medical division provides customers from the medical technology and pharmaceutical sectors with injection-molded components through to blow-molded primary packaging for devices and instruments pertaining to the areas of surgery, pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, and dialysis.

History

The early years

The origins of the Röchling Group date back to the early 19th century. In 1822, Friedrich Ludwig Röchling went into business for himself by founding a coal trading business in Saarbrücken. Röchling passed away childless in 1836 and bequeathed the business to his four nephews, the sons of his brother Christian. The “brothers” Theodor, Ernst, Carl, and Fritz Röchling, from which Gebr. Röchling KG takes its name, began with the production of coke and the industrial processing of iron in 1849. The businesses were largely run by Carl Röchling (1827-1910), particularly at the turn of the century since he outlived his brothers by decades. He bought the Völklingen Ironworks in 1881, which from then on operated under the name “Völklinger Eisenwerk Gebr. Röchling OHG”. The acquisition of the Völklingen Ironworks – which was heralded as the world’s first industrial monument and elevated to the status of a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1994 – marked the dawning of the steel era for Röchling. The first blast furnace was put into operation there in 1883.

pre-war years

In the 1890s, Hermann Röchling (1872-1955) gradually took over the responsibilities of his father, Carl. Under his direction, the pre-industrial ironworks developed into a modern blast furnace plant, which was also able to produce the quality steels that were increasingly in demand.

First world war

At the beginning of the First World War in 1914, the Völklingen Ironworks was converted to meed the demands of the war. A factory was erected on the premises, which produced bullets of almost every caliber for the artillery. What’s more, a large part of the material that was required to manufacture the steel helmets for the German army was produced in Völklingen. After the end of the war, the French Allied Powers dispossessed the Röchling family of its ownership of the Carlshütte ironworks in Diedenhofen, as well as the iron ore mines in Lothringen, and all their subsidiaries in France. Hermann Röchling and his imprisoned brother Robert were court-martialed in Amiens on the grounds of dismantling French businesses in the occupied territories and were sentenced to long-term imprisonment. Whereas Robert was acquitted on appeal and released from prison after 22 months, the sentence against Hermann remained formal because he refused to appear before a French court martial for the annulment of the judgment.

1920 to 1945

During the 1920s and 1930s, Hermann Röchling pressed ahead with the reconstruction of the family business and acquired new companies – including its first plastics company Holzveredelung GmbH Berlin in 1922, which over the decades evolved into today’s Röchling Engineering Plastics SE & Co. KG – and became politically involved in the reincorporation of the Saar region into Nazi Germany, which was subjected to a League of Nations mandate until 1935. In 1935, he joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) and became an armament advisory board member of the Reich Ministry of Defense. In 1938 he was appointed Wehrwirtschaftsführer, or leader of a war materials factory, to demonstrate he was contributing to the war economy, and in 1942 he became a Reich Delegate for iron and steel in the occupied territories. On the grounds of his industrial exploitation of the occupied territories and his role in "Increasing the war potential of the Third Reich and significantly contributing to the implementation of the abduction program for the purpose of forced labor",[4] Hermann Röchling was sentenced by a French military tribunal in a court of appeals in Rastatt to ten years’ imprisonment along with the expropriation of his assets and the deprivation of his civil rights. He was released early from prison in 1951 and died in 1955. In the same year, the company acquired Rheinmetall Berlin AG, supplier to the newly founded German Federal Armed Forces.

Second half of the 20th century

The Völklingen Ironworks remained under French sequestration until the end of 1956 when the Saarland joined Western Germany. Germany returned it to the Röchling family. In the same year, Ernst Röchling, a nephew of Hermann Röchling, took over the running of the plant in Völklingen. In 1960, the company was divided into two parent companies: Gebr Röchling KG and Industrie Verwaltung Röchling GmbH, which was renamed the Röchling Industrie Verwaltung (RIV) GmbH in 1972. It encapsulated all the listed companies, primarily the participation in Rheinmetall AG.

In the 1960s and 70s, the Röchling Group started to feel the effects of the looming downturn in coal and steel, which escalated into a global steel crisis. The company responded by completely changing its corporate strategy: It sold the Völklingen Ironworks in 1978 and withdrew entirely from the steel industry and the Saarland. Instead of conforming to the economic and science trends at that time, the Group focused on diversification and acquired participations and entire companies in the fields of mechanical engineering, telecommunications, electrical installation, franking systems, and measurement and control technology. The acquisition of the Seeber Group and Sustaplast KG instigated the further expansion of the plastics processing division in the 1980s.

The new millennium

At the beginning of the new millennium, the conglomerate consisted of more than 300 subsidiaries and affiliates and employed approximately 30,000 employees, generating sales of around EUR 6 billion. However, the not only frequent but increasing number of difficulties associated with the high diversification prompted the family to make essential changes to its leadership and strategy. A fundamental reform of the guiding principles of the company was thus decided upon. A key issue here was the decision to concentrate the family strengths exclusively in the supervisory boards in future and thus dispense with their operational functions within the company. In this context, Klaus Greinert, the son-in-law of Richard Röchling and managing director of the Group since 1994, joined the Advisory Board. He replaced Kurt Wigand Freiherr von Salmuth in 2000, who had presided over the boards from 1986 until his 70th birthday. In 2008, Dr. Bernd Michael Hönle, managing director since 1994, joined the supervisory bodies as the last operationally active descendant of the company founder.

Moreover, the Röchling family once again decided upon a fundamental and radical change in strategy under the new non-family CEO Georg Duffner in 2001: where it turned away from the confusing conglomerate and expanded the plastics processing division. This included the sale of all non-plastic activities (sales of approximately EUR 5 billion), in particular the sale of a majority stake in Rheinmetall AG via the stock exchange in 2004.[5] In parallel to this reconstruction, the company strengthened the internationalization of the plastics Group in Eastern Europe, America, and Asia. New markets were developed, especially in medical technology. The restructuring was completed in 2006. Operating purely as a processor of plastics, the Röchling Group is thus building on its now almost 200-year-old tradition of materials specialists, thanks to almost one hundred years of experience in plastics.

The appointment of Johannes von Salmuth as Chairman of the Shareholders’ Committee in 2008 and Chairman of the Advisory Board in 2010 saw a sixth generation direct descendant of Friedrich Röchling once again preside over the supervisory bodies.[6] His deputies, Dr. Bernd Michael Hönle (Shareholders' Committee) and Dr. Carl Peter Thürmel (Advisory Board), are also two Röchling family members.[7]

The name of the company was changed from Gebr. Röchling KG to Röchling SE & Co. KG in 2004.

Röchling Foundation

The Röchling family established the Röchling Stiftung GmbH in 1990 with the aim of pursuing its social commitment and assuming joint responsibility for the community. The foundation is financed by seed capital from the company, shares in Röchling companies that have been given and bequeathed by shareholders, the proceeds from assets, and donations. When the Foundation selects the charitable and scientific projects to be sponsored, it focuses on projects of a limited duration that have a thematic connection to “plastic” or are of local relevance to a Röchling Group location. The focus is on the topics of teaching and learning, healing and helping, as well as the environment and technology.

Literature

References

  1. ↑ Röchling Group website; About the Group (http://www.roechling.com/de/roechling-gruppe/ueber-die-gruppe.html)
  2. ↑ Röchling Group website; High-performance plastics (http://www.roechling.com/de/automobil-kunststoffe.html)
  3. ↑ Röchling Group website; Automotive Plastics (http://www.roechling.com/de/automobil-kunststoffe.html)
  4. ↑ “Verdicts in the Röchling Trial”, Mannheim 1949, p.44 (Verdict from January 25, 1949, passed by the supreme court of the military government of the French occupation zone in Germany); National archive Baden-Württemberg, "Documents from the trial against the Röchling company’s management" (https://www2.landesarchiv-bw.de/ofs21/olf/struktur.php?bestand=23728&sprungId=3207065&letztesLimit=suchen)
  5. ↑ Web presence "Völklingen im Wandel": Die Gebrüderfamilie Röchling (Völklingen in the Midst of Change: the Röchling Brothers) (http://www.voelklingen-im-wandel.de/gebaeude-huette-roechling.php)
  6. ↑ Röchling press release: Change in Leadership of Röchling Group Advisory Board (http://www.automobil-produktion.de/menschen/roechling-gruppe-mit-neuem-beiratsvorsitz-124.html)
  7. ↑ Röchling Group website; Advisory board (http://www.roechling.com/de/roechling-gruppe/beirat.html)
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.