Monday 11 October 2021
Despite the dispute over the Bundeswehr deal
Haenel weapons company can increase sales
The armaments company Haenel manufactures weapons for armies and for the police. Business is booming last year, although a major order from the Bundeswehr is still pending.
The weapons company Merkel and her daughter Haenel are selling significantly more rifles this year than in the Corona year 2020. Sales are expected to increase by around 20 percent to around 21 million euros, said CFO Swen Lahl in Suhl. He did not give any information about the profit. This brings you to the level of sales before the pandemic, like in 2019. You might even be slightly above it. “It was a good financial year and we made up for the pandemic-related losses in any case.”
The Merkel Group belongs to the state arms company Caracal from Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. According to its own information, it has around 130 employees who work at the company’s headquarters in Suhl in Thuringia. Merkel makes hunting weapons. The subsidiary CGHaenel, which works closely with Merkel and uses the same production halls, produces weapons for authorities, i.e. for armies and the police. It is known, for example, that the Saxony police use a Haenel rifle.
Last year Merkel had to accept falling sales, also because gun shops for hunters and sport shooters were closed in the meantime. On the other hand, according to CFO Lahl, Corona had no notable influence on business with the authorities. “It continues to go well.” The Merkel Group does around two thirds of its business with hunting weapons and one third with rifles for authorities. According to von Lahl, the outlook remains positive, and according to his first estimate there could be a further increase in sales in 2022.
One of Haenel’s competitors is the much larger company Heckler & Koch. Haenel is engaged in a bitter legal dispute with the gunsmiths from the Black Forest over a major federal order for 120,000 fully automatic assault rifles – Haenel recently suffered two setbacks.
In addition, Heckler & Koch accuses the competitor Haenel of a patent infringement in a semi-automatic rifle, this will be followed by an oral hearing at the Düsseldorf Regional Court tomorrow, Tuesday. Haenel considers the patent registered by Heckler & Koch on three holes in the weapon to be null and void and has filed a nullity action at the Federal Patent Court in Munich separately from the Düsseldorf proceedings.