Schleich

Line

• Thomas van Kaldenkerken
• Erich Schefold

The toy manufacturer Schleich GmbH is a German company with headquarters in Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany. There are also factories in China, Portugal and Tunisia, sales subsidiaries in France, USA, UK, Japan and Spain.

The manufacturer of lifelike handpainted animal figures made ​​of hard rubber injection molding process employed by its own account in Germany about 250 employees and an annual turnover of around 100 million euros. Schleich is majority owned by HgCapital, a European private equity investor.

History

Friedrich Schleich founded the Schleich GmbH in Stuttgart in 1935 originally as a supplier for plastic parts. In the 1950s, the company was known under the name Schleich figures, in the 1960s it focused on license toy figures. Friedrich Schleich in 1976 sold his company. Schleich set forth cartoon characters like the Smurfs, Maya the Bee, figures of the Muppet Show or Mickey Mouse at that time. From the 1980 self-developed animal figures were added as products that are currently produced as naturally as possible. After a bankruptcy in 1986 took over four shareholders the company. As of 2003, the company expanded its program, following current trends, with buildings and other accessories, historical figures such as knights and fantasy figures. Meanwhile, half of the toy in China is made good.

Schleich joined in 2006 the Code of Conduct of the toy industry. The scheme developed by the International Council of Toy Industries Code defines labor and social standards and can be independent checks on Chinese suppliers.

The majority shareholder since December 2006, the private equity investor HgCapital. Other shareholders are the three directors of the company. A company sales in 2013 failed.