Without credit
Though starved of bank loans, German companies are reluctant to tap alternative sources of capital
BY GERMAN standards, Rolf Heinemann's company is unusual, and not only because of its inspiring history. Mr Heinemann runs Robotron, a Dresden maker of data-warehousing software, and owns 53% of it. In Communist times he was a technician at Robotron's state-owned predecessor, a conglomerate of the same name with 70,000 workers in East Germany. He began on his own in 1990 with DM50,000 (then $30,000) of capital. After more than a decade of careful reinvestment of profits, the modern Robotron has sales of €11m ($11.5m) a year and employs 125.
This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Without credit”
From the November 1st 2003 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionDiscover more
The great-man theory of Wall Street
Why finance is still dominated by bold individuals
Hong Kong’s property slump may be terminal
Demographics and geopolitics will make a recovery harder
Why everyone wants to lend to weak companies
An unanticipated side-effect of Donald Trump’s election victory
American veterans now receive absurdly generous benefits
An enormous rise in disability payments may complicate debt-reduction efforts
Why Black Friday sales grow more annoying every year
Nobody is to blame. Everyone suffers
Trump wastes no time in reigniting trade wars
Canada and Mexico look likely to suffer