Giesecke & Devrient Celebrates Its Unauspicious Beginnings 150 Years Ago, Magnetic and Chip Cards Now a Further Key Business Field

Munich-based Giesecke & Devrient (G+D) is currently celebrating 150 years in existence. The high-security corporation specializes in the production of banknotes, securities, identity documents and chip cards.

Because of its specialized product range, the company's history mirrors the economic development of Germany and other countries over one-and-a-half centuries. The company, which is still family-owned, was formed in Leipzig in 1852 by Hermann F. Giesecke and Alphonse Devrient. Its aim was to print high-quality and thus counterfeit-proof banknotes and securities. At that time, banks still had issue rights. The first contract came in 1854 from the Weimarer Bank. Shortly afterwards, the principality of Altenburg contracted G+D to print its 10-thaler note. In 1876, the first foreign orders came from Swiss cantons and a banknote order from Peru. However, the German company was only permitted to print notes for the German Reich in exceptional cases.

The company's fate appeared to be sealed at the end of World War II, when 80 percent of the company's headquarters in Leipzig was destroyed by Allied bombs and turned into a national enterprise by the government of the German Democratic Republic. But when Siegfried Otto, who had married into the Devrient family, was released from Russian captivity in 1948, he dared to make a fresh start. Gathering together the former G+D specialists who had fled the Russian-occupied zone, he began production again in a shed on the grounds of Munich's Riem airport.

[EuroTracer's Comment: For copyright reasons, the complete article cannot be shown here. The original article might still be available at the link below.]

The vertically integrated corporation, with turnover of € 1.1 billion ($1.04 billion) in 2000 and 7,000 employees worldwide, prints banknotes for some 60 countries and supplies 80 with banknote paper. Of the 12 euro-zone countries, 11 have contracted G+D to print some of their euro notes. While G+D has caught up well in turnover with the world market leader, U.K. company Thomas De La Rue (De La Rue plc), it has not yet reached its earning power. Maintaining its own position on the banknote market, which is burdened by the huge overcapacities in paper and printing, as well as the cost-effective expansion of the card business, are the challenges for the future. But since G+D is to remain family-owned for the near future, the most pressing task is likely to get fit for the capital market.

[EuroTracer's Comment: According to a spokeswoman of G+D, euro notes were not produced for 11, but for 6 countries (incl. Germany). However, G+D provided printing paper for euro notes for some more countries. Notes were first printed in Munich only, and since spring 2001 also in Leipzig.

On 2000-09-01, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported:
Euro Misprints Will Be Reworked
München. The Bundesbank and the European Central Bank agreed on Friday to a plan to insert missing security features into hundreds of millions of new € 100 notes misprinted by a Munich-based company. The G&D printing company had produced 320 million notes which were missing some of the 16 Omron rings – named after their Japanese inventor – necessary to protect against counterfeit activities. G&D will now modify the notes at a cost of DM10 million ($4.8 million). The company would have lost DM30 million if the notes had simply been destroyed.]

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