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Private company

Omya

Logo: Unknown author Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons3

Swiss industrial minerals company

Omya (formerly Plüss-Staufer) is a Swiss company based in Oftringen, active in the chemical industry. Founded in 1884, it has developed into a multinational operating across diverse sectors. It is a producer of industrial minerals, mainly fillers and pigments derived from calcium carbonate and dolomite, and a worldwide distributor of specialty chemicals.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

1884Founded1
  • HeadquartersOftringen1
  • Websitewww.omya.com
  • Legal formAktiengesellschaft1

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Omya (formerly Plüss-Staufer) is a Swiss company based in Oftringen, active in the chemical industry. Founded in 1884, it has developed into a multinational operating across diverse sectors.2

Corporate structure

Omya sits at the top of its group. 2 entities, 1 country on record. Switch between the flow chart and the network, and select any entity to see its details.

  • Omya Oftringen
    • Dankalk Subsidiary · Aggersund, Denmark

Built from subsidiaries, stakes and holdings from Wikidata (CC0); major holders from Schedules 13D and 13G. Each entity in the chart links to its source.

The story

The company grew out of the paint and linseed-oil business of Johann Gottfried Plüss's father at Oftringen. In 1884 Plüss founded the firm Plüss-Staufer, named after his family. An early flagship product was the Plüss-Staufer-Kitt, a putty advertised as gluing and repairing everything. A new factory was built at Oftringen in 1893, which remained the company's seat, and in 1894 the firm bought the chalk quarries Aux Monthées at Omey, in Champagne. Plüss-Staufer became a joint-stock company in 1903.

Plüss's son-in-law Max Schachenmann took over the management in 1924 and passed it to his son of the same name in 1940, the company remaining family-owned. From 2000 the firm was named Omya AG, after the important chalk quarries it owned, and it developed into a multinational active across diverse sectors of the chemical industry, with 6,000 employees in 2007 and 9,000 in 2026.

From Wikipedia’s article on Omya, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4

Timeline

  1. 1884Founded Founded1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

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