Schwanhäusser Industrie Holding, a family-owned enterprise founded in 1865 in the Nuremberg area, has acquired Germany’s market leader in backpacks, Deuter Sport, which is located not far away in the area of Augsburg. The best known property of Schwanhäusser is its brand of pencils, Schwan-Stabilo. The group’s sales in the fiscal year ended June 30 were €288 million, of which €123 million were obtained with office supplies. The rest of the company’s turnover is mostly generated by OEM sales of cosmetics such as lip-sticks and eye-liners.

The group’s aim was to diversify its business, and as it so often happens, it chose sports. Deuter was for sale because its owner, Michael Franke, could not manage to settle his own succession within his family. Franke still owns a leathergoods brand, Oxmox, which is for sale as well.

According to Bernd Kullmann, a 20-year veteran of Deuter and its future managing director, Franke joined Deuter in the late ‘eighties when the brand was far from doing well. It manufactured its backpacks in the Bavarian town of Gersthofen, entailing sky-rocketing costs, and the image of the brand was less technical than it is today. Franke and Kullmann set out to revamp the brand and to re-establish it among outdoor dealers in Germany. Deuter’s sales were €25 million in 2005, or double the level of 1998, and the company is profitable.

Franke decided to sell Deuter to Schwanhäusser to place it in a medium-sized family-run business environment in which the backpack brand would fit in well, operating autonomously. Schwan-Stabilo has been in the hands of Gustav Schwanhäusser’s heirs for 140 years. The shareholders are 40 family members. Sebastian Schwanhäusser is managing director and Kullmann will report to him. Pat Loomis will remain in charge of Deuter’s U.S. subsidiary.

The new owner promises that there will be no change in Deuter’s operational structure and that all its 45 employees shall remain at their places. Synergies are seen in data processing and other back-office functions, but sales and marketing will remain strictly separated.