The Swiss investor Arklyz has taken over the Upper Bavarian shoe brand Gabor. The company, based in Stans on Lake Lucerne, did not disclose the purchase price. All official approvals have been received, as stated in the announcement.
The Rosenheim-based shoe manufacturer, previously owned by the founding family of the same name, is best known for its women’s shoes. Accordingly, the company is now wholly owned by Arklyz. The Gabor brand should be retained, and the current management will also remain on board.
Arklyz is an investment company founded in 2018 that is primarily active in the areas of sports, clothing and shoes. Last year, Arklyz took over a German shoe brand, Lloyd, based in Sulingen, Lower Saxony.
Headquarters in Bavaria, production abroad
The forerunner of today’s Gabor Shoes was a shoe workshop founded in 1919 in what is now Polish Upper Silesia; the company has been based in Rosenheim since 1966. According to the company website, Gabor is one of the largest European shoe manufacturers.
In 2023, the company employed almost 2,630 people. Of these, only 366 worked in Germany; the majority of the workforce worked in two shoe factories in Slovakia and Portugal. In 2023, according to the federal business register, Gabor generated a net profit of 13.4 million euros and sales amounted to 282 million euros.