Vapiano

In 2002, Mark Korzilius opened the first restaurant under the Vapiano brand name in Hamburg's Neustadt district. One month later, the company was registered as a joint-stock company according to German law under the company name of Mark's AG in the Commercial Register. In addition to Mark Korzilius, who served as the company's sole Management Board member, other investors were involved. The Italian architect and designer Matteo Thun contributed to the design. Among other elements, he came up with the interior design of the restaurant. At the end of 2003, the founder Mark Korzilius stepped down from his position as company Chairman, and the company was also renamed Vapiano AG. Based on the model of the original Hamburg location, the company opened additional restaurants, e.g. in 2004 in Düsseldorf as well as 2005 in Frankfurt, Nuremberg and Munich. New restaurants were also established in Hamburg.At the end of 2005, Vapiano moved its headquarters from Hamburg to Bonn. This was in connection with the opening of a restaurant in the Erich-Ollenhauer-Haus. In 2005, the company crossed the EUR 10 million threshold in revenue for the first time. From 2006, the company increasingly expanded abroad, e.g. to Belgium, Austria and Turkey. There was remarkable media reception marking the opening of the first restaurant in Vienna. Activities were also launched in Dubai and the United States. At the same time, Vapiano increasingly began cooperation with franchise partners in Europe. After continuous growth in the years 2006 and 2007, the number of restaurants in 2008 exceeded 30 and by the end of 2009 had already reached roughly 60. In 2011 in Vienna, Vapiano opened its 100th restaurant.Since September 2008, the company has been operating as Vapiano SE. In 2011, the private equity firm, Vermögensverwaltung Mayfair, acquired 40 percent of the shares in Vapiano from Gregor Gerlach. Gerlach had invested in the company already in the start-up phase, acquired the shares of other shareholders and served as Chairman of the Supervisory Board. The equity position assumed by Mayfair, which according to Capital had even sought a majority, was intended above all to facilitate international growth. The Sander Family, heirs of Wella, had acquired shares in Vapiano in the meantime. The change in the shareholder structure led to the resignation of the longstanding Chairman Marko Silz, due to "differing views" concerning the future strategy. His successor was Gregor Gerlach, who continued to promote international expansion.After ten years in operation, the company had 118 restaurants and 7,200 employees worldwide, including 50 restaurants and 3,100 employees in Germany. In the 2010s, the company's success led to me-too competitors. In 2014, Vapiano altered its strategy and in smaller cities built new corporate-owned restaurants not run as franchise operations. The growth of the company slowed down,

along with basic criticism of the company's expansion strategy in 2015. In mid-2015, Gregor Gerlach announced that he was moving from Chairman onto the Supervisory Board, in order to devote more efforts to other ventures. In addition to the Management Board, the Supervisory Board of Vapiano was also newly appointed.In 2017, Vapiano went public and at that time "had a market value of about 553 million euros, or more than $630 million."In early 2019 the company was in financial trouble. Losses piled up after sales targets were missed, the share price had slumped by 75% since entering the stock market in 2017, and the company had expanded too quickly. As a result, the company decided to reduce the expansion tempo, have more locations operated by franchisees, alter the concept in order to reduce waiting times for customers and close unprofitable locations. In 2018 the company reported financial losses of €101 million. On 20 March 2020 the company filed for insolvency. The main reason was that losses had increased after almost all restaurants had to close temporarily due to the COVID-19 pandemic.The company officially entered insolvency proceedings on 2 April 2020 in Cologne.In June 2020, Vapiano was bought out of insolvency by a group of hospitality investors, led by Mario C. Bauer . New investors include Henry McGovern , Sinclair Beecham , Family van der Valk , and Gregor Gerlach .