Rohde Shoes
Erich Rohde GmbH is a German shoe manufacturer based in Schwalm town in the Schwalm -Eder-Kreis in Hesse. As Rohde group it operates internationally and is particularly active in Central Europe.
History
The company's history begins in 1862 with the founding of the tannery Rohde in Guben (Brandenburg). In 1926 company founder Erich Rohde which emerged from this tannery shoe factory. In 1939, the Gubener slipper factory Erich Rohde the Gaudiplom for excellence.
The Second World War Rohde had lost two shoe factories. In 1947 Rohde used scrap material for shoe manufacturing - the stem consisted of old Wehrmacht uniforms, uppers made of box bed material and the soles of car tires.
From 1948 Rohde operation in Lower Saxony with some expellees rebuilding the company. It the first production operation of Erich Rohde KG meantime reorganized company was built. The following year, the site was opened Ascherode in today Schwalm city near goats grove. Early 1950s was another factory in Bad Kreuznach. The company employed at a daily production of over 1,700 pairs of shoes, about 200 employees.
In the 1960s, expanded Rohde and established branch plants in Germany ( Immichenhain, Borken and Schrecksbach ) and Austria ( Hallein ), later followed by production in Portugal (1975, Santa Maria da Feira ) and Eastern Europe. Erich Rohde died in 1965, the namesake of the former KG. Son Frederick W. Schmitt, the sole shareholder of KG takes over the company. In the 1980s, Rohde integrated step by step computer technologies in its production and thus accelerated the manufacturing processes. With the license transfer for the shoe collection of the French lifestyle brand Daniel Hechter Rohde expanded its product range in 1996 and benefited from the influence of the license tag on the master brand.
In 2003, Rohde under the management of Christoph Schmitt and Friedrich O. Schenk with 3,180 employees ( 2,300 in Portugal) a total of approximately 164 million euros. The company started in 2004 along with 66 other medium-sized German and Austrian companies in financing platform ( PREPS 2004-2 ) partly to finance together through the capital market with amounts of up to 18 million euro per company. As a result, Rohde took part in further mezzanine financing ( PREPS 2005-2 CB and Mezzcap I).
, 2005, Rohde within his group a total of approximately 3,800 employees with a daily production of 38,000 pairs of shoes and an annual production of 8 million pairs of shoes. 45 % of annual production went to the non-German European market, 5% overseas. In Schwalm city is at that time an automatically controlled high-bay warehouse with a capacity of approximately 500,000 pairs of shoes.
In 2007, Erich Rohde KG filed for bankruptcy. Against the former managing directors, general partners Friedrich Wilhelm Schmitt was under investigation for fraud and filing for insolvency. Even the sister company Alit -Werke Carl Schmitt GmbH & Co KG filed for bankruptcy in 2007.
In 2008, Schmitt was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for fraud, after which he filed a full confession and repaid EUR 5 million of the total loss amount of 40 million euros. He had not enriched, but trying to save the ailing company. The company was acquired by Square Four Investments and Morgan Stanley and restructured. State aid has been requested. As part of the restructuring almost a third of employees had to be laid off. Production sites in Austria and Portugal, the latter with almost 3,000 employees, were closed. Since then, the company is managed under new management as a limited company. At the end of 2012, the production will be in Schwalmstadt completely closed and increasingly outsourced abroad. 31 December 2012 also the cooperation between Rohde and Daniel Hechter is to be terminated after 15 years by mutual agreement. [ Deprecated] future is to be a focus on the brand Rohde. in 2012 the company opened a new showroom in Hamburg Modecentrum. The production will be coordinated mainly in Eastern Europe (eg, Bosnia and Slovakia).
Corporate structure and key figures
Managing Director in 2010 were Stephan Oliver Harmening and Kraxner. Harmening 2009 sparked the current CEO Pierre Heurich from. This, coming from Sara Lee, had his position since 2008 and left the company because of differing views on the further development .. Since February 2011, directs Oliver Kraxner the company as sole managing director.
Erich Rohde GmbH employed in 2009 an average of 300 employees and achieved a turnover of 59.7 million euros this year. The Rohde Group employed more 97 staff in five European and Canadian subsidiaries. In 2009 she gave a turnover of EUR 68.2 million, which includes the conversion of the GmbH.
Erich Rohde GmbH operates alongside acquisitions in their own production facilities in Schwalmstadt the installation of approximately 20,000 shoes per day. According to their own representation, it is one of the largest shoe manufacturers in Europe and sold over 4 million pairs of shoes a year, most of them in the segment slippers. Rohde shoes are available at 3,200 retail partners throughout Europe, the company also operates two factory outlets at headquarters in Schwalm and city in the northern Hessian Borken. The company has offices in the Netherlands, Switzerland and France, Austria, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden and England. The collections of the licensed brand Daniel Hechter are sold by 550 European trading partners.
Products
Erich Rohde Ltd. sees itself as a family brand and leading models for men, women and children. Two new collections every year on the market, which include not only roads and leisure shoes or evening shoes, sandals and slippers. The models will be presented at the international shoe trade fairs GDS in Dusseldorf and Expo Riva Riva del Garda.
Own brands and intellectual property rights
1966 settled Rohde protect the word mark " Modissa ". In 1975 for shoes, also for " those with woven or knitted textile shaft, in particular house shoes and slippers " and footwear to protect the word and figurative mark " ROHDE " in which the letter " O " is highlighted with a black rectangle. 1981 settled Rohde protect the word - figurative trade mark " ROFLEX ". In 1985 he was the registration of the figurative mark for " Wörishofer foot bed " under the brand name " modissa Rohde ," which was itself first registered in 1994. 1997 could be the Rohde modernized logo in blue lettering and a series now red parallelogram that a white " O " is stored. Followed in 2005 on the basis of this logo protection of the mark " ROHDE KiDS ".