Habermaass

Founding and early years

The merchant Eugen Habermaaß (born 1901 in Tübingen) came to Rodach near Coburg in 1938, by way of Neustadt bei Coburg, where in the 1930s he had worked as an authorised signatory (Prokurist) at the company O. & M. Hausser, and Bayreuth, where he had been a director of the Bayerische Ostmark trading guild. In April 1938, he acquired one half of a factory for finely polished wooden goods from the entrepreneur Anton Engel for 25,000 Reichsmark. In the same month, Habermaaß and Engel, together with the merchant Karl Wehrfritz, founded the wholesale company Wehrfritz & Co.

Karl Wehrfritz left six months later. In 1940, Anton Engel withdrew from the business, which was converted into a limited partnership under the name Habermaaß & Co. Eugen Habermaaß became managing partner and his wife Luise a co-partner. During World War II the company produced transport and ammunition crates for the Wehrmacht, as well as wooden model vehicles and tanks for training purposes. In 1945, the company was placed under trustee administration by the U.S. military government for one year. When Eugen Habermaaß died unexpectedly in 1955, his wife took over the management. Around the same time, their son and later managing director Klaus Habermaaß began an apprenticeship as a cabinetmaker. After completing his engineering studies in 1961, he took an active role in the business.

International subsidiaries and product expansion

The company began to expand in 1980, when the American company Skaneateles Handicrafters was purchased by Habermaaß Inc. Later renamed T. C. Timber, the operation was finally renamed Habermaass Corp. Inc. in 2002. In the meantime a French subsidiary, Haba SARL, was established near Paris in 1993 and existed until 2024. In 2005, Haba UK followed as a site in the United Kingdom, and in 2011, a subsidiary in Hong Kong (Haba Asia), which was deconsolidated at the end of 2023 in the course of the insolvency.

To broaden its product range, the group founded Jako-o GmbH in 1987, a mail-order business for children's fashion, toys and accessories, which added the Fit-z! and Qiéro! sales divisions in 2004. In 2009, Habermaaß acquired Project Schul- und Objekteinrichtungen GmbH, a manufacturer of school furniture in Eisleben. In February 2015, the group acquired the children's app developer Fox and Sheep, which was sold again in 2020. Since 1 January 2020, Haba also wholly owned the Haba Digitalwerkstätten (Haba Digital Workshops), which Verena Pausder had initially co-founded in 2016.

In 2021, the group's US business acquired the online retailer Bella Luna Toys and the Oompa brand. Bella Luna Toys, founded in 2002 as an online source for Waldorf toys and supplies, moved its order fulfilment to Skaneateles, New York, where Haba USA is based.

Restructuring and establishment of the foundation

In 2013, the group had around 2,000 employees, and total revenue had been €354 million in 2012. In 2017, the company changed the spelling of its name from Habermaaß GmbH to Habermaass GmbH.

In 2019, Klaus Habermaaß also established the Stiftung für Natur und Kinder – Klaus Habermaass, which supports regional and national projects for nature and children. Since 2025, the foundation has been operating as Habermaass Stiftung.

Insolvency and restructuring

Because of economic difficulties, Haba closed all sites of its Digitalwerkstatt in April 2023, announced the elimination of about 650 full-time positions in July 2023, and in August 2023 announced the discontinuation of the Jako-o baby and children's fashion division. Jako-o had long-standing economic problems and, at the beginning of 2023, suffered drops in revenue during the changeover from outdated software to SAP. On 12 September 2023, the company filed for insolvency in self-administration.