Trenkwalder

1985 to 2002

The Engineer Richard Trenkwalder founded the company in 1985 in Schwadorf. Through professional activities abroad, he was familiar with the leasing of specialists. He initially operated his company with around 30 employees. Trenkwalder is one of the companies that have held a license for personnel leasing since 1988, when these were first granted in Austria.

By establishing branches and through acquisitions and partial acquisitions of competitors in Austria, the company expanded in its home country. In 1998, Trenkwalder ranked behind Austria's Manpower (now: Powerserv) and Adecco in third place; in 2000, it became the market leader in Austria.

In 1992, Trenkwalder opened its first foreign branch in the Slovak capital Bratislava. Since 1999, the company has been active in Germany and Hungary. The following year, it entered the market in Czechia and in Italy, and in 2001, it began market entry in Slovenia.

From 1998 to 2000, Trenkwalder was among the fastest-growing companies in Europe each year. However, the company's growth stalled in 2001 and 2002. In 1993, the company employed 80 people and had sales of 80 million ATS; by 2002, Trenkwalder had 7,000 employees and generated sales of 192 million euros. The previous rapid growth led to turbulence. Additionally, a large part of the management in Italy temporarily left for a competitor.

2003 to 2011

At the beginning of 2003, German Capiton AG acquired 25.4 percent of the company's shares for 10 million euros. This investment strengthened Trenkwalder's equity and enabled further expansion. In 2003, the company began operations in Croatia. In October 2003, Trenkwalder acquired a majority stake in the Multi-Man Group, becoming the market leader in Hungary. In 2004, the company also achieved market leadership in Slovakia. The following year, Trenkwalder became the largest provider in Czechia through the partial acquisition of Kappa People. In November 2005, Trenkwalder entered the Polish market by purchasing a majority stake in a Polish provider (Partner Sp. z o.o.). Trenkwalder also started operations in Romania and Serbia in 2005. The partial acquisition (80 percent) of MSE Personal Services AG marked the company's entry into the Liechtenstein market in early 2006. Activities also began in Switzerland in 2006, followed by the acquisition of City Job AG and the PL Group the following year. In 2007, Trenkwalder expanded into the markets of Bulgaria, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, and Turkey.

In 2007, Trenkwalder also repurchased the shares of Capiton AG for 50 million euros. That same year, the corporate structure changed: Trenkwalder International AG became the holding company for international business, while the business in Austria was spun off into a separate entity, Trenkwalder Personaldienste GmbH. The company entered the markets in Greece and Albania in 2008, the year in which Trenkwalder, with around 70,000 employees in 450 branches, generated more than 1 billion euros in sales.

The 2008 financial crisis led to 30,000 layoffs at the firm. Business picked up again from the second quarter of 2009, with the number of employees reaching 53,000 by the end of 2009. Revenue for the 2009 financial year amounted to 790 million euros. The company sought a financial investor in the following year and agreed on a comprehensive financing package with banks at the end of the year.

Since 2011

The sought-after investor was found in 2011: Düsseldorf's Droege Group and Trenkwalder agreed just before Easter 2011 on the sale of more than 75 percent of the company's shares. At the end of 2010, Trenkwalder reported a workforce of 70,000 and sales of around 1 billion euros. The sale was completed in August 2011, following the due diligence process and approval by the competition authorities and supervisory boards.

Business activities

The Staffing division primarily involves the temporary leasing and placement of employees. The HR Services division offers personnel-related services such as payroll processing or applicant management. As part of Personnel Consulting, Trenkwalder supports strategic personnel planning and labor market analyses for location selection, including regional labor market characteristics, labor availability, salary assessments, and total labor costs. Trenkwalder Learning offers a wide range of mobile training in self-study and Blended learning formats in more than 23 languages.

Partnerships

Wherever joint tasks are to be solved in the labor market, Trenkwalder cooperates with national labor market administrations. An example of this is the collaboration of the Austrian subsidiary with the Employment Service (AMS).

For years, Trenkwalder has cooperated with the Danube University Krems through its Austrian subsidiary: in 2008, the university course "Personnel Services Management" was established there. It was initially developed specifically for Trenkwalder employees. The program was an MBA course. A year later, the course was also offered to individuals who were not part of the Trenkwalder staff. The program continues to be offered in an updated form to this day (as of October 2019).

Locations, group, and partners

The Trenkwalder Group operates in 16 European countries: Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Bulgaria, Greece, Croatia, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania, Czechia, Turkey, Hungary, Kosovo and Netherlands. Most of these are in the German-speaking region and CEE countries. The number of locations exceeds 200.