Through its subsidiary Leica Camera Frankfurt GmbH, Leica Camera AG, Wetzlar, has acquired the business operations of Rahn AG Foto & Fine Art, Frankfurt am Main. The business activities of Rahn AG will be continued as before. Together, the directors of Rahn AG up to now, Qaiser R. Malik and Nicolas Uhl, the grandson of the company founder Georg Rahn, now hold slightly more than 25 per cent of Leica Camera Frankfurt GmbH and have been appointed its managing directors. Leica Camera AG thus holds almost 75 per cent of the company’s shares. All parties have agreed that no financial details will be disclosed.
Leica Camera Frankfurt GmbH will operate the specialist shop for digital and analogue Leica cameras, lenses and accessories, photo books, photographic literature and art photography, which was formerly operated by Foto Rahn. In addition to stationary and online sales of camera equipment and sport optics products, art photography and literature, Leica Camera Frankfurt GmbH will also hold auctions for collectables in the categories cameras, lenses, binoculars and telescopes and art photography, and will organise specialised photographic excursions – including hosting by professional photographers – and courses on the use of Leica products. The portfolio will be supplemented by a premium print service for photographs. The auctions, photographic excursions, training courses and print service business sectors will be the first to be transferred, with effect from 1 December 2014. The sectors photographic equipment sales and the Leica Galerie Frankfurt, which has been run by Rahn AG on the top floor of their shop Am Salzhaus 2 since 2004, will follow in 2015.
Alfred Schopf, chairman of the Executive Board at Leica Camera AG: ‘We see very promising synergy potential in stationary and online sales of cameras and art photography, as well as in the portfolio of photographic services and auctions of photographic memorabilia. Leica Camera Frankfurt GmbH will preserve and uphold the excellent reputation of Foto Rahn as an institution known far beyond the borders of Frankfurt am Main as a specialist in photographic equipment retailing and as an organiser of photographic memorabilia auctions. Simultaneously, this also enables Leica Camera AG to strengthen and expand its strategic position in stationary and online retailing of cameras and sport optics products and its competence in the photographic memorabilia market.’
Nicolas Uhl, managing director of Leica Camera Frankfurt GmbH: ‘I am very pleased that today, 104 years after its founding, Foto Rahn has teamed up with a partner as strong and reliable as Leica Camera AG for the further expansion of our mutual business model. Considering that our company has been selling Leica products since the 1930s, this merger is a logical step forward.’
Qaiser R. Malik, managing director of Leica Camera Frankfurt GmbH: ‘The new company offers us the opportunity to raise our profile of services for the world of photography and make it even more attractive. We also intend to further expand the important role of the Leica Galerie Frankfurt as an integral part of the cultural landscape in the Rhine-Main region.’
