Beiersdorf AG

Beiersdorf AG is a German personal care company based in Hamburg, Germany, manufacturing personal care products. Its brands include Elastoplast, Eucerin (makers of Aquaphor), Labello, La prairie and Nivea.Although its shares are publicly listed, Beiersdorf is controlled by Tchibo Holding AG (parent company of Tchibo), which directly owns 50.49 percent of shares.The company has been founded in 1882 by pharmacist Paul Carl Beiersdorf in Hamburg and sold to Oscar Troplowitz in 1890. The patent of 28th of march 1882 for Paul C. Beiersdorf is regarded as foundation date of the company. He received the patent for his development of a new manufacturing process of medical plasters.In 1911 Troplowitz launched the new product called Nivea, a stable fat moisturiser, after he had already sold a white soap in 1906.With BSN medical the company started on 1st oft April 2001 an independent subsidiary. It is a Joint Venture of Beiersdorf (Hamburg) and Smith & Nephew (London) and serves on the market of surgical dressing, orthopaedics and phlebology. BSN Medical had 350 employees in Germany and 3.400 worldwide in 2004. The turnover received 504 mn euros and its operating income reached 70 mn euros. In 2006 BSN medical was sold to Montagu Private Equity for 1.03 bn euros.With "Beiersdorf Shared Services GmbH" (BSS, a ltd. company) in 2003 another subsidiary had been founded. BSS operates independently but internal as a partner for the whole Beiersdorf group in which IT and accounting services were outsourced. They are having 275 employees in Hamburg and 350 in total worldwide.In the same year a two years lasting bidding war ended. Procter & Gamble had a highly interest in Beiersdorf and offered the then owner of 19.6 % of the shares, Allianz insurance, a take over deal. Fears rose in Hamburg that Procter & Gamble is only interested in the brands in fact and not in the company as a whole. Therefore a Hamburg solution was preferred by many in the city. The city of Hamburg with its HGV state owned share holding company managed it to create this solution. The Herz family, owner of the company Tchibo, who already had a stake in Beiersdorf increased the part of shares to 49.9 %, Allianz still hold 3.6 %, Beiersdorf company bought back 7.4 % of shares and 3 % were given to the Beiersdorf-pension fund. Another share holder, a private family, assured to hold their share. By this alliance of the city and some of their families the headquarter was rescued for Hamburg and is still providing hundreds of jobs and taxes of approximately 200 mn euros a year. In June 2009 Allianz announced, to have reduced its part of shares from 7.2 to 2.88 percent.On 22nd of December 2008 the Beiersdorf AG has been admitted to Deutschen Aktienindex (DAX).

Net income € 318 million (2010)

Total assets € 5.095 billion (2010)