{"id":7244,"date":"2023-11-08T09:21:06","date_gmt":"2023-11-08T08:21:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.henze-bnp.de\/unkategorisiert\/30-years-of-henze-at-bnp-a-success-story\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T17:08:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T15:08:24","slug":"30-years-of-henze-at-bnp-a-success-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.henze-bnp.de\/en\/unkategorisiert\/30-years-of-henze-at-bnp-a-success-story\/","title":{"rendered":"30 years of Henze BNP \u2013 a success story?"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Looking at the development of the family-run business Henze BNP, it sounds like a great success story. From one man to 50. From 9 m\u00b2 to 3,500 m\u00b2. From milled components to sintered parts produced in-house. But it wasn\u2019t always quite as straightforward as it seems\u2026 <\/p>

The history of what is now Henze BNP AG began with Peter Henze. <\/strong><\/p>

Peter Henze, who was born in North Rhine-Westphalia, began his professional career in 1980 at the Elektroschmelzwerk (ESK) in Kempten. There, he established and expanded the field of fracture mechanics and non-destructive materials testing. It was there that he first came into contact with the material boron nitride. <\/p>

After several years at ESK, Peter Henze decided in 1992 to leave his current employer and take up a new post. However, after just a few months, he realised that this decision had been a mistake and resigned. He was refused re-entry to ESK due to a recruitment freeze. What appeared to Peter Henze at the time to be a wrong decision laid the fateful foundation for the establishment of his own company. <\/p>

Yet Peter Henze himself never wanted to be an entrepreneur. However, due to his specialisation in non-destructive materials testing, he was considered unemployable on the Allg\u00e4u labour market.
Find another suitable job in Kempten? Virtually impossible. So, in November 1993, Peter Henze decided to act as an independent sales partner for ESK. This marked the birth of what is now Henze Boron Nitride Products AG. <\/p>

The company began operations in the family\u2019s 9 m\u00b2 utility room. This was quickly converted into an office, whilst the hallway served as a storeroom. Under an open-sided canopy outside, Peter Henze cut his first boron nitride components. The early years were not easy for Henze BNP AG. Sometimes Peter Henze would wait for days on end for the next customer enquiry, and worries about the future often kept the father of four awake at night. But giving up was never an option for Peter. His belief in the material and its properties kept driving him forward, and after the initial difficulties, the order book began to look increasingly promising. So positive, in fact, that in 1995 Peter wanted to build a workshop to make room for a saw, but the bank refused to grant him a loan for it. So, without further ado, he built a wooden shed himself, attaching it to the family home. And, as befits a true family business, everyone pitched in to help.
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The company\u2019s positive growth continued, and in 1997 Peter Henze took on his first employee \u2013 Johann Bentele. Hans (as everyone called him) remained with Henze BNP for over 25 years and took his well-deserved retirement in 2022. <\/p>

In the years that followed, both the volume of orders and the number of machines and staff increased. The wooden hut, which had served as a temporary premises, was no longer adequate, and so in 1998 the company moved to the COMETA Technology Park on Heisinger Stra\u00dfe in Kempten. <\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Business flourished and grew. The order book continued to look promising. Until that fateful 11 September 2001. The terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre in New York plunged the whole world into a massive economic crisis. <\/p>

And so, after years of sustained success, Henze BNP faced its first major crisis. Turnover plummeted and redundancies loomed. During this difficult period, the whole team demonstrated a strong sense of solidarity. Thanks to mutually agreed temporary pay cuts, combined with reduced working hours for all staff, no one had to be made redundant and the company emerged from the crisis stronger than ever. <\/p>

Up until that point, Henze BNP had operated solely in German-speaking countries. The economic crisis made it clear to Peter Henze that the company needed to expand its international presence in order to secure its future. He therefore strengthened the sales team and began attending international trade fairs. <\/p>

Over the following years, the company continued to grow, expanded its operations on a global scale and focused on the entire spectrum, from boron nitride powder to finished sintered components. <\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Yet no company is immune to international crises. The economic crisis of 2001 was followed, just seven years later, by the major stock market crash and a global banking crisis. The whole world was thrown into turmoil, and Henze BNP was no exception. <\/p>

In 2009, the company had to cope with a 28 per cent fall in turnover. However, just as in the previous crisis, the strong solidarity amongst the entire workforce kept the company afloat. Henze BNP even used this period to make further investments in machinery. <\/p>

In 2012, two of Peter Henze\u2019s sons \u2013 Matthias and Christoph Henze \u2013 took over the management of the company. Peter Henze had thus set the wheels in motion early on to ensure a smooth handover of his business. <\/p>

Even at that time, the company was (figuratively speaking) bursting at the seams. The technology park had become too small, so Henze BNP purchased a 10,000 m\u00b2 plot of land in nearby Lauben. The company built its current premises on this site. In January 2014, the company moved into the new building, which was last extended in 2022. Now operating across an area of 3,500 m\u00b2, Henze BNP develops, manufactures and sells hexagonal boron nitride products to international customers and has recently expanded its value chain by purchasing its own hot press. <\/p>

Today \u2013 30 years after it was founded in the family\u2019s utility room \u2013 Henze BNP has a turnover of around 14 million euros, boasts state-of-the-art machinery, produces its own sintered components and employs over 50 staff. <\/p>

Although the early years following the company\u2019s foundation were not easy for Peter Henze and his family, the team\u2019s ambition and strong sense of unity ultimately led to a highly successful story. A story that is far from over. <\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The history of what is now Henze BNP AG began with Peter Henze. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7243,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[307,76,308],"class_list":["post-7244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-unkategorisiert","tag-30-years","tag-henze-bnp","tag-success-story"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.henze-bnp.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.henze-bnp.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.henze-bnp.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.henze-bnp.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.henze-bnp.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7244"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.henze-bnp.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7245,"href":"https:\/\/www.henze-bnp.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7244\/revisions\/7245"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.henze-bnp.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.henze-bnp.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.henze-bnp.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.henze-bnp.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}