January 30, 2014

Hansgrohe SE, one of the few global players in the sanitation industry that is represented on all continents, remains headed for further expansion. On December 5, 2013 in Istanbul, this mixer and shower manufacturer from the Black Forest announced the establishment of a distribution company of its own in Turkey. The Managing Director is Albert Emlek; other members of Management are Udo Kraus and Bens Ezhuthanavayalil.

"For over twenty years now, Hansgrohe has had a presence in Turkey via importers," said Siegfried Gänßlen, CEO of the company based in Schiltach. "In the past several years, the market has developed very well thanks to a boom in the housing construction sector. We identified this potential and, together with our partners, we succeeded in positioning Hansgrohe as a leading German premium brand. This has given us very good foundations to continue developing the immense growth potential of the Turkish market and its neighboring regions with a team of our own."

Following the foundation of the new company, Hansgrohe Armatür San. ve Tic. Ltd. Şti., headquartered in Istanbul, the number of countries in which this bathroom and sanitation specialist has representative offices of its own has risen to 42. The company meanwhile generates about 80 percent of its total sales revenues outside Germany.

Base for expansion to neighboring markets
In the past several years, Turkey has become one of the largest and most important direct export markets for Hansgrohe SE. "Our Turkish customers have a pronounced level of quality awareness and assign substantial importance to design and functionality. For this reason, we already began at an early stage to systematically invest in establishing this market and invest in distribution," said Managing Director Albert Emlek. "Thanks to our nationwide sales and service network, we are in close proximity to our customers and can deal in an optimum fashion with any specific wishes they have when it comes to bathroom planning and design."

The new Hansgrohe subsidiary also serves as a home base for developing neighboring markets in the Eurasian region. "There are strong, partly historical economic ties in place between Turkey and its neighboring states, and we plan to leverage these," emphasizes Albert Emlek.

About Hansgrohe - the original from the Black Forest
During its more than 112-year history, the company Hansgrohe (www.hansgrohe.com), with headquarters in Schiltach in the Black Forest, has acquired a reputation in the sanitation sector as one of the innovative leaders in technology, design and sustainability. With its mixers, showers and shower systems, Hansgrohe creates the original products that make the bathroom more functional, more comfortable and more beautiful. It is no coincidence that they can be found in prominent prestige projects such as on the giant cruiser "Queen Mary II," in Terminal 5 of Heathrow Airport in London, in the tallest man-made structure ever built, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, as well as at the Chancellor's office in Berlin, in the Yoo luxury apartments in New York or at the Masdar City Institute of Science and Technology in Abu Dhabi. The company and its products were honoured with a myriad awards, among the latest ones being the "Umsicht Science Award," the "Designpreis der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 2012" (Design Award 2012 of the Federal Republic of Germany) and the "iF Gold Award 2012" In 2012, the company generated sales of about EUR 805 million with its Axor®, Hansgrohe®, Pharo® and Pontos® brands (2011: EUR 764 million). The Hansgrohe Group currently has a global workforce of about 3,400 employees, with about two-thirds of them working in Germany. The company, which takes tough action against product piracy and intellectual property theft, manufactures its products in six German plants, in France, the Netherlands, in the U.S. and in China.

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