A new shareholder, the same questions at the shelf

As of 19 December 2024, Bormann & Gordon Unternehmensberatung GmbH has a new shareholder. management consult Dr. Eisele & Dr. Noll GmbH has acquired all shares in the company. For everyone who runs store tests, category reviews or pharmacy panels with us, one question matters most: what does this mean for the work at the shelf?

What has changed at ownership level

The buyer is management consult Dr. Eisele & Dr. Noll GmbH, part of mac Holding GmbH and backed by Rhein Invest. Since 19 December 2024 it holds all shares in Bormann & Gordon. The group has stated its aim clearly: to build a leading German market research group. Bormann & Gordon is its third investment in market research.

Management stays in familiar hands. Reiner Graul continues as managing director until the end of 2026 and is responsible for the integration into the group. He joined the company in 1999; Rüdiger Bormann founded it in 1972. Bad Homburg remains our base, the team stays together, and around 120 people continue to work directly at the point of sale for us across Germany.

Method is the asset

A research institute lives on the comparability of its data. That is precisely why the craft stays exactly as our clients know it.

The controlled store test continues to follow the same design: baseline measurement, test stores against a control group, weekly field visits and analysis based on sell-out data. Our POS audits remain at roughly 30,000 store visits per year, measuring out-of-stock situations, contact zones and how reliably agreed activities actually reach the shelf. The B&G Shopper Monitor Tankstelle has been interviewing around 2,500 shoppers a year directly at the forecourt shop since 2004. The POS Monitor Apotheke has been running four waves a year in a fixed pharmacy panel since 2008 and has used image recognition since 2022. SPOTR, our secondary placement tracker built with POSpulse, has been delivering photo-based results into a live dashboard since January 2022.

This continuity has a practical reason. A time series holds its value for as long as the study design and the field organisation stay stable. Anyone who wants to know how shopper expectations have shifted over the years gets that answer from a series that has stayed intact throughout. Those series are the reason clients have worked with us for decades.

What the group adds in reach

The new ownership opens access to the resources of a larger market research group. For projects, that means three things above all: more capacity in digital consumer interaction, more speed in data analysis up to near real-time reporting, and a broader methodological toolkit to build study designs from.

For international clients, the new structure also answers a recurring question. Anyone deciding budgets from a head office outside Germany looks for a partner connected to a group with robust processes. That connection now exists. Our specialisation in convenience, forecourt shops, grocery retail and pharmacy remains fully intact, because it is the very reason for the transaction.

What it means for live projects

Running studies continue, contacts stay the same, and multi-client studies keep their rhythm. If you have booked a wave in the pharmacy panel or have a store test in the field, you work with the same project managers as last year.

The questions our clients bring us move more slowly than ownership structures anyway. How much genuine incremental volume does a secondary placement generate, and how much of it is cannibalisation? Does the market really show what was agreed centrally? Which pharmacy visible-choice display earns its space, and which one merely fills it? These questions come up in the 2025 annual negotiations just as they did ten years ago. The answers still come from the field, from the shelf and from sell-out data.

Looking ahead

2025 will be a year of collaboration behind the scenes and familiar routines in front of them. The study calendar is set, the waves are scheduled, and the field organisation is at work nationwide. Reiner Graul personally accompanies the integration, so that it stays where it belongs: in the background.

If you would like to know what the new ownership means for your projects specifically, talk to us. The team in Bad Homburg will take the time for that conversation, by phone or at your offices.