Gebr. Heinemann

'''Gebr. Heinemann SE & Co. KG''' is a Hamburg-based distributor and retailer in the international travel market.

History
Gebr. Heinemann was founded in Hamburg, Germany, on November 1, 1879, by Heinrich Christian Carl Heinemann and his brother Carl Friedrich Eduard Heinemann. The brothers began with duty- and tax-free wholesale trade in tobacco products and liquor. The focus was on supplying ship chandlers and shipping companies. The company was based in Hamburg's Speicherstadt warehouse district. In 1910, a major fire destroyed all the goods stored in the port.

In 1903, Heinrich Heinemann's son Otto joined the company as a partner; Otto's brother Richard also joined the company in 1911. Due to the latter's untimely death, Otto Heinemann's son Helmut succeeded to the partnership in 1937.

In 1943, during World War II, the company experienced a major fire in the warehouse, in which the warehouse at Sandtorkai was completely destroyed. From the 1950s, Gebr. Heinemann also supplied the new duty-free shops on ferries to Scandinavia with tobacco and confectionery products as well as liquor. In 1953 and 1954, the first airline customers followed (Icelandic Airlines and Deutsche Lufthansa). Because of the new field of air travel, perfume and cosmetics were added to the range, followed later by fashion and accessories, confectionery and gift items.

The first duty-free shop was opened at Frankfurt Airport in 1958. This was operated by the state, supplied by Gebr. Heinemann. On February 16, 1962, large stocks in Hamburg became victims of the storm surge.

The company received its first retail concession for duty-free at an airport in 1969 for Cologne/Bonn. Other shops soon followed. In 1978, the warehouse moved to Magdeburger Strasse (now Koreastrasse). In 1979, Gunnar and Claus Heinemann replaced their fathers and continued the family business in the fourth generation. Since 1986, the company headquarters have been located at Kaispeicher B in HafenCity.

When the European Union abolished duty- and tax-free purchasing for travel within the EU on July 1, 1999, the company expanded its market share in Europe. In 2003, a logistics center was built and put into operation in Hamburg-Allermöhe. The warehouse building in the Speicherstadt was converted into the company's headquarters.

In 2009, the subsidiary Heinemann Asia Pacific was founded with headquarters in Singapore. On January 1, 2012, the company changed its legal form from a KG to an SE & Co. KG. In 2013, Gebr. Heinemann founded the subsidiary Heinemann Americas, based in Miami. In 2014, the second logistics center was opened in Erlensee.

In 2018, Max Heinemann became the company's fifth-generation CEO.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic since 2020 and the accompanying lockdowns, significantly fewer people traveled than before, resulting in less merchandise being purchased in airport shops. As a result, the company suffered the two worst years in its history. In 2020, it generated only 33% of the previous year's sales. Since 2022, the travel retail business has been recovering; due to long waiting times at the airports of the still not fully recovered travel business, airport passengers bought about 20% more than before the pandemic, which also benefited Gebr. Heinemann.

Corporate structure
Since 2018, the company's managing director has been Max Heinemann. In 2022, he was joined by Raoul Spanger, who has been serving as a managing director since. Managers Dirk Schneider, Florian Seidel, and Kai Deneke serve as members of the executive board. Former managing directors Claus Heinemann and Gunnar Heinemann represent the owning family on the Supervisory Board.

The company's 2021 sales revenue was EUR 1.56 billion. In 2021, the company employed 6913 people worldwide.

Gebr. Heinemann operates as a distributor and retailer in over 90 countries. The company has a total of about 500 of its own shops as a retailer at airports (about 340), cruise ships, and border crossings. In addition, the company supplies airports, airlines, cruise ships, border shops, ship chandlers, diplomatic missions, military shops, and duty-free zones around the world.

Gebr. Heinemann and its subsidiaries have shops in Europe, the Middle East, Asia (Heinemann Asia Pacifics), Africa and North America (Heinemann Americas). The company also operates its own logistics centers in the German cities Hamburg-Allermöhe and in Erlensee.

Products
In the shops operated by Gebr. Heinemann itself, as well as for distribution customers, the company sells branded goods in the fields of cosmetics, alcohol, confectionery, food, tobacco products and fashion. Over half of the income is generated from the sale of alcohol, tobacco and confectionery.

Controversies
Due to collusion with competitor James Richardson over the license to operate duty-free shops at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, the Arbitration Commission of the International Chamber of Commerce ordered the company to pay damages on November 19, 2021. Gebr. Heinemann had applied for the license under the joint venture Alfa, but after secret agreements left the license to James Richardson, for which Gebr. Heinemann was to receive the license for Sydney without competition. Alfa was thus out of the running.

A court in Tel Aviv confirmed the award in the summer of 2022.

Award

 * 2015: German Retail Award of the German Retail Association