Just in time for its biennial customer day, the office supplies retailer Kaut-Bullinger produced a new image film that delivers the glossy images that are usual for such videos – for example from a lofty height, when flying over the company headquarters in Taufkirchen. For a good three minutes, everything revolves around the advantages and qualities of the more than 200-year-old company.
For the company headquarters in Taufkirchen, the abandonment of the business in the city center has no consequences, according to managing director Robert Brech.
(Photo: Claus Schunk)
You will look in vain for photos of its shops and, above all, of the parent company in Munich’s Rosenstrasse, which is why most people know the name Kaut-Bullinger, in the film – and not without reason. Because the company is currently undergoing a radical change in strategy, is completely withdrawing from retail and closing several branches – at the end of February 2022, the flagship not far from Marienplatz.
“It was a decision that we had to make and that was extremely stressful for all of us,” said Robert Brech, Managing Director of the Kaut Bullinger Group, at the opening of the customer day. More than 300 customers and partners came to the company premises in Potzham near the A 995. There is brass music and an ox on a spit, dozens of exhibitors present new products on topics such as 3-D printing, office supplies and working in the home office. There is also a raffle, a beer tent and half a dozen food stalls, which – paired with the many guests in traditional costumes – gives the whole thing a touch of a festival atmosphere.
But this festive mood quickly evaporates as soon as it comes to the headquarters in Rosenstrasse. Its closure was an “extremely deep turning point for us,” Robert Brech said earlier at the press conference. And yet the step is inevitable: “We have posted high losses in the single-digit million range there for years,” said the managing director. The corona crisis including lockdowns did the rest. The 60 employees in Rosenstrasse are the main victims, says Brech. Negotiations are currently taking place with the works council on a social plan; ten of them are to be taken over and work in the company headquarters.
What does the departure from retail mean for the Taufkirchen location, where the company has had its headquarters including logistics and warehouse since 1992? “Nothing at all,” replies Robert Brech. “The retail trade and our location here were like two separate worlds.” In Taufkirchen town hall you will be happy to hear that, after all, Kaut-Bullinger not only employs a good 230 people in the community, but is also not an insignificant business taxpayer with an annual turnover of almost 100 million euros.
Robert Brech openly admits that the company left feathers in the Corona crisis. Sales are “dramatically below budget, but we are still not a day below the previous year”. In the medium term, however, Kaut-Bullinger wants to grow, and “gigantically”, according to the managing director.
After saying goodbye to retail, the focus will be on the online area and business with major customers, which, according to Brech, already accounts for 80 percent of sales. The financial scope for investments is available, not least due to the sale of the building in downtown Munich to the Signa group of the entrepreneur René Benko. The price was between 80 and 100 million euros, reveals Brech, who announced: “We will bring about changes in our company.”
Meanwhile, the Taufkirchen-based company wants its customer day – the first major event since the outbreak of the pandemic – to be understood primarily as a sign of change. “The signal of this day is that we will not surrender to this crisis,” says Robert Brech. “It is time to look forward to the future with courage and optimism.”