OBI GmbH & Co. Deutschland KG is a German multinational

home improvement The concept of home improvement, home renovation, or remodeling is the process of renovating or making additions to one's home. Home improvement can consist of projects that upgrade an existing home interior (such as electrical and plumbing), ...

supplies

retail Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesaler, and t ...

ing company. It is headquartered in

Wermelskirchen Wermelskirchen (; Ripuarian: ''Wärmelßkirrshe'') is a town in the Rheinisch-Bergischer Kreis, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, southeast of Remscheid. It is home to one of Europe's biggest live Christmas trees (measuring 26m). Coat of arms ...

and operates 668 stores in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

, of which 351 are in Germany.

History

Obi was founded in 1970 by Emil Lux, Manfred Maus and Klaus Birker with the opening of the first Obi store in the Alstertal shopping center in Hamburg-Poppenbüttel. In 1985 the

Tengelmann Group Tengelmann Warenhandelsgesellschaft KG, doing business as the Tengelmann Group, is a holding company based in Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany. Structure The corporation has the following subsidiaries: * KiK Textilien und Non-Food GmbH, with over 3 ...

acquired a majority stake in Obi. The share was increased in 2007 by buying the shares of the Lux founding family. Obi has been present in Switzerland since 1999, in partnership with the

Migros Migros () is Switzerland's largest retail company, its largest supermarket chain and largest employer. It is also one of the forty largest retailers in the world. It is structured in the form of a cooperative federation (the Federation of Mig ...

cooperative. It formerly had operated 13 stores in mainland

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

but these were sold to B&Q in 2005. The company expanded in

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

in 2008, where it opened 7 stores until 2010. Due to the economic crisis and the small market share, the company decided in 2014 to close the stores, 5 of them were sold to

Jumbo Jumbo (about December 25, 1860 – September 15, 1885), also known as Jumbo the Elephant and Jumbo the Circus Elephant, was a 19th-century male African bush elephant born in Sudan. Jumbo was exported to Jardin des Plantes, a zoo in Paris, and t ...

. Also in 2008 the company opened the first 2 stores in

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

, followed in 2009 by a third store. They closed in 2013. In 2015, Obi took over 68 stores from bankrupt

Baumax The Baumax AG (own spelling: ''bauMax'') was an Austrian chain of home improvement stores. It was founded in 1976 by Karlheinz Essl Sr. in the city of Klosterneuburg and operated more than 150 stores in Austria and several countries of Eastern ...

, 48 of which are located in Austria, 14 stores in Slovakia, two stores in Slovenia, and four locations in Czechia. In March 2022, Obi closed all operations in Russia due to the Russia-Ukraine war. On April 27, 2022, the chain's stores began to resume work in Russia. The retailer sold its business to a Russian investor. The businessman Josef Liokumovich became the new owner. According to him, he acquired the Russian business of OBI for a symbolic price of 600 rubles (10 USD). On December 9, 2022, one of OBI's Russian stores burnt down due to a chemical explosion, resulting in at least one fatality.

Operations

References

External links

*
Official German website
Hardware stores Companies based in North Rhine-Westphalia Retail companies established in 1970 Retail companies of Germany 1970 establishments in West Germany German brands {{Germany-company-stub