Despite a few turbulences during the year, Arnold André GmbH & Co KG can once again announce very pleasing overall results for 2011. The distribution partner change of the Swedish Match brands to Scandinavian Tobacco Germany initially brought a double digit loss of revenue. This loss was quickly more than compensated for with the acquisition of the German distribution of the Oettinger Davidoff Group and Toscano brands. Due to the end of the cooperation with Swedish Match, new distribution partners had to be found in many of the 80 export countries where Arnold André products are present. Despite these difficult conditions the total sales increased by 13.5 percent to 76 million Euros. The worldwide sales of in-house produced products increased in the past year by a further eight percent to 420 million pieces. Despite difficult conditions, the family business located in East Westphalia is still clearly on the road to success the fourth year in a row.
Growth factor export
Export is a strong factor for growth and meanwhile accounts for almost 40 percent of the total sales with a plus of 17 percent. Ten years ago the share was ten percent. The established company”s strongest growth has been gained in Italy, France, and Spain. There is also surprisingly high demand in the epicentre of the Euro Crisis, Greece. The development in the rest of Western Europe is also positive, as well as in Eastern Central Europe and in Asia and Africa, where complete new markets could be developed. According to Managing Director Wiljo von Maren the change to different distribution partners led to better results in all cases. “This was one of our most important success factors last year. In addition, we gained an excellent brand portfolio with the Oettinger Davidoff Group in October 2011.”
According to Managing Director Rainer Göhner the domestic demand for cigars and cigarillos from the in-house production was stable compared to the previous year. The slight decline in total turnover was due to the losses of the Swedish Match brands. The large format cigars, especially the shortfiller, have continued to lose ground. This originally is connected to the smoking ban in restaurants. Retail and customers have reacted very well to our top brands Clubmaster with mini cigarillos and Handelsgold Sweet Cigarillos with their convincing price-performance ratio.
The number of employees considerably increases
A result of the restructuring – but also a clear indicator for the success of the previous years – is the considerable increase in the number of employees. Overall, 493 employees were employed by the company worldwide at the end of 2011. 390 were employed at the two locations Bünde (142) and Königslutter (248). Sales representatives made up 53 employees and Arnold André employed another 50 employees abroad. According to Rainer Göhner the number of employees will grow considerably in 2012.
Arnold André Dominicana SRL
In addition, the wrapping company Arnold André Dominicana SRL, founded in May 2011, has considerably contributed to this increase. Up to now, the essential wrappers for cigars and cigarillos for the André company were ordered in Indonesia on commission. With the new company owned by André, a further step is taken towards independence from suppliers. Since January 2012 André has steadily relocated the production of the wrapper bobbins in the Dominican Republic. Full capacity should be reached by the end of 2012 with 300 employees.
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