The history of Semperit is also a history of personalities who have shaped the company to this day. Just like the inventor-entrepreneur Johann Nepomuk Reithoffer, they helped innovative ideas achieve a breakthrough, created the basis for today’s global player as industrial managers and secured the company’s continued existence as restructuring managers. A summary in four acts.
The founding generation: Johann Nepomuk Reithoffer & Sons
Reithoffer was one of Austria’s most outstanding entrepreneurial personalities of the early 19th century. He learned the tailoring trade and traveled as a journeyman at a young age, even living in Paris for ten years. Back in Austria, he set up his own business in ready-to-wear clothing. As a tinkerer and inventor, he also worked on making clothing waterproof, initially by impregnating it. This is how Reithoffer later discovered the many possible uses of rubber. The first rubber goods company on the European continent was established in Vienna. Reithoffer was soon producing suspenders, rubber shoes and similar products on an industrial scale. He founded the factory in Wimpassing and expanded rapidly. Reithoffer was the driving force in the company until old age, and his sons later took over the management. When Reithoffer died in 1872 at the age of 77, around 8,000 employees were producing rubber goods for the whole of Europe in the Group’s factories.
The industrial and financier: Camillo Castiglioni
Camillo Castiglioni was a dazzling personality in the Austrian economy in the first half of the 20th century. Born in Trieste, he began his career in the Austrian rubber industry in 1900. From the management of the export department of Continental in Vienna, he rose to become commercial director in 1904 at the age of 25. Continental later merged with Semperit-Gummiwerke. As an aviator and automobile enthusiast from the very beginning, Castiglioni became a key supplier to the k & k – imperial and royal – army during the First World War with his industrial contacts and shareholdings, and he made a fortune this way. After the First World War, his Depositenbank became the leading shareholder in the fragmented Austrian rubber industry. Castiglioni’s controversial activities in the 1920s, which were, however, also characterized by industrial visions, led to the merger of all these companies into one group. Ultimately, Castiglioni formed Semperit AG, the largest rubber group in Europe at the time. Castiglioni was an important benefactor of the arts and led an excessive life of luxury. He repeatedly became embroiled in political affairs and bold financial speculation. Castiglioni died de facto penniless in Rome in 1957.
Tragic wanderer between worlds: Franz Josef Messner
As a young sugar and coffee exporter, the cosmopolitan Tyrolean made a considerable fortune in Brazil. In the 1930s, Messner made a name for himself in Austria as a consultant to industrial companies. He came to Semperit as a “restructurer” on behalf of the majority shareholder Creditanstalt because the global economic crisis had had a severe impact on the company’s business success. Messner streamlined the production program, improved the cost structure and in 1937 became Semperit’s General Director at the age of just 41. He was entirely devoted to Semperit. Messner initiated a social program for the workforce that was above average for the time and was appreciated for his cooperative management style. After Hitler’s invasion of Austria, he endeavored to minimize the influence of the Nazi regime on the company. Messner used an order to procure natural rubber in Brazil in 1939 to return to Brazil, but after six months he made an adventurous journey back to Europe. On the inside, he was always an opponent of the Nazi regime. In addition to his role as general director, Messner became one of the leading figures of a secret resistance cell. As a leading industrial manager, he was able to provide the USA with information crucial to the war effort from 1942 onwards. The group was betrayed and Messner and his comrades-in-arms were sentenced to death. He was executed at the Mauthausen concentration camp in 1945, just a few days before the Allies liberated the camp.
The successful cost manager: Rainer Zellner
The structural course for the survival of the crisis-ridden Semperit Group was set in the 1980s under the leadership of Franz Josef Leibenfrost: the sale of the tire division to Continental AG and the establishment of a glove joint venture in Thailand. As early as 1983, the experienced bank investment manager Rainer Zellner joined Semperit’s Executive Board. He was the logical successor when Leibenfrost left Semperit in 1989. Zellner was regarded as a meticulous number cruncher who set Semperit on a growth course with rigid cost management. Consistent material and personnel cost savings, product streamlining, the dismantling of outdated hierarchies and the introduction of profit centers were the order of the day. He filled the operational management positions with a young, dynamic team who relentlessly followed his corporate philosophy. Zellner also personally attended to many details and became a role model for an entire generation of managers. The success was resounding. As “Mister Semperit”, Rainer Zellner was able to report improved results year after year until his retirement. This enabled Semperit to return to growth after years of tough restructuring. After leaving Semperit, Zellner continued to work for Austrian companies for many years, primarily as a member of the supervisory board.
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