EOS Holding GmbH

EOS Building in Hamburg
Trade name	EOS Group
Company type	GmbH
Industry	Debt collection,financial services
Founded	1974 (1974)
Headquarters	St. Georg, Hamburg, Germany
Key people	Marwin Ramcke[1]
Revenue	EUR 853,1million(fiscal 2019/20)[2] Number of employees was 7,578 (fiscal 2019/20)[2]
Number of employees	7,578(fiscal 2019/20)[2]
Website	www.eos-solutions.com

TheEOS Group is aholding company that operatesfinancial services companies with locations in Europe,^[3] the United States^[4] and Canada.^[5] Its core activity isreceivables management including receivables purchasing anddebt collection. The group, which has its headquarters inHamburg, is part of theOtto Group.

Deutscher Inkasso-Dienst (DID), the nucleus of the group, was established in 1974 as aspin-off of the legal department ofOtto-Versand (now:OTTO).^[6] The company dealt with collecting outstanding receivables forOtto-Versand and also for non-group companies. Early on, the service provider focused on correspondence and dialogue with defaulting payers and on the acquisition of external clients.^[7] In the 1980s and 1990s, the company grew through acquisitions inGermany, through expansion in Europe, and through expansion of its range of services.^[8][9]

In 2000 the EOS Holding was established,^[10] introducing the umbrella brand EOS.^[8] The company entered theUS when it took overCollecto in 2001, a company founded in 1992.^[8][11] In 2004 the group established a special company formedical debt recovery,EOS Health Honorarmanagement AG, which established itself over the following years particularly as a service provider for dental practices.^[12][13]

In July 2005 the group acquired a majority stake inEurope Matrix Financial Services S.A. with operations inGreece,Bulgaria,Macedonia andSerbia.^[14] In fiscal 2007/08 it enteredRussia,China and theBenelux countries. At the same time the group acquired a stake in direct marketing specialistCoXulto (Stuttgart). By the end of this period the group had almost 3,500 employees.^{[15][16][17][18]} In 2009 the group purchased theSpanish debt collection service providerAcción de Cobro fromBanco Pastor.^[19][20] It entered theCroatian market by establishingEOS Matrix d.o.o.^[21] Thanks to a majority shareholding inWCF Finetrading AG, the group expanded its activities in commodity pre-financing,^[22] a business segment that the company then relinquished in 2017.^[23]

A location inUkraine was established in 2010.^[24][25] In the same year, the company strengthened its presence in the USA through the acquisition ofTrue North AR.^[26] This was followed in 2011 by the purchase of a majority stake inHoepers Recuperadora de Crédito S.A, a debt collection service provider inBrazil.^[27] Since April 2011 the company has also been offering its services inFrance following its takeover of debt collection companyCredirec.^[28] The group acquired the Canadian debt collection companyNor-Don Collection Network (NCN) in 2011.^[29] In 2013 the group took over the debt collection unit of Spanish bankBanco Popular,^[30] and purchased the companySAF Forderungsmanagement fromDeutsche Telekom.^[31] In 2015 it acquired theSwisscom debt collection subsidiaryAlphapay.^[32][33] At the end of 2015 EOS andEuler Hermes soldBürgel toCRIF.^[34][35] The group strengthened its market position in France andBelgium in 2016 through the purchase ofContentia.^[36]

In 2016 the group took on an administrative role (Verwaltungshelfer) for the recovery of outstanding debts for theadministrative district of Wittenberg,^[37] and acted in a similar way in the same year for theBundesagentur für Arbeit.^[38][39][40] The city ofEssen engaged three debt collection service providers in 2016 including EOS.^[41]

On 1 March 2017 Klaus Engberding became Chairman of the Board of Directors of EOS Holding GmbH.^[42][43] He succeeded Hans-Werner Scherer, who had led the group for many years.^[42][44][45]

At the end of 2018, the Group soldHealth AG and theSwiss Zahnärztekasse AG toBAWAG P.S.K.^[46]

On February 1, 2022, Marwin Ramcke took over as CEO.

The group provides international financial services mainly in receivables management. Its three main areas of activity arefiduciary collection, receivables purchasing and business processoutsourcing.^[47] The company says it serves around 20,000 customers,^[43][48] including primarilymail order companies andonline retailers, banks, telecoms companies,utilities, thereal estate business and thepublic sector.^[49]

EOS is a member of the Otto Group.^[43] It dominates the financial services segment within the group^[50][51][52] and is regarded within the group as having very high margins.^[45][53] At the beginning of the year 2020,^[2] the group included more than 60 operating companies.^[48][54] It has established locations in 26 countries^[55] in Europe^[3] and North America.^[4]

The group'sfiscal year begins – like that of the Otto Group – on 1 March and ends on 28 February of the following year, or 29 February in leap years. In 2019/20 the company achieved a revenue of 853,1 million euros.^[2] Since 2005, credit rating agencyEuler Hermes Rating has consistently awarded EOS Holding therating A.^{[56][57][58][59]}

For many years the group has been conducting surveys on payment practices in various European countries. In addition, it investigates payment practices by systematically comparing specific countries or defined groups, e.g. of companies in Germany.^{[60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68]}

In 2003 the group funded a study at theHeinrich Heine University Düsseldorf on new financing methods forsmall and medium-sized enterprises.^[69] In addition, an "EOS Financial Panel" developed and operated over several years to investigate and inform on the use of various financing instruments.^[70][71]

The press occasionally criticises the debt collecting practices of group companies. This criticism is related to demands for payment of sums that are decades old,^[72][73][74] or demands made despite incorrect invoices^[74][75] or charges that are excessively high and/or are questionable.^[6][76] However, amongdebt counsellors the company is regarded as "a provider about which there are only a few complaints".^[45]

In April 2017 around 33,000 files fromEOS Schweiz AG got into the hands of theSüddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. They were said to include sensitive personal data likemedical files, correspondence and credit card bills showing the names ofcreditors anddebtors, their registered addresses and information on the amount of outstanding debt. The newspaper said that it had obtained the data from aninformer, but the informer stated that they were acquired fromhackers who had found a vulnerability in the server software. The company closed the security gap and announced an overhaul of processes.^{[77][78][79][80]}

The head office is located on theSteindamm, a street inHamburg's St. Georg district. This property of the Karl and Rudolf Förster heirs was designed by Adolf Böhringer, built from 1966 to 1967, extended laterally in 2003 and energetically renovated in 2011.^[81][82]

The building that accommodates the company's Czech subsidiaryEOS KSI Česká republika, s.r.o. was built inPrague between 1955 and 1958 according to plans produced by architectKarel Prager. It initially housed a research centre for communication named after Russian physicistAlexander Stepanovich Popov.^[83]

• EOS Holding GmbH & Co. KG:EOS 10 years. EOS – eine Erfolgsgeschichte. [Hamburg 2010].
• Deutscher Inkasso-Dienst:25 Jahre erfolgreich und innovativ. 1974–1999. Die Chronik. [Hamburg 1999].

• EOS Group

• Financial services companies of Germany
• Companies based in Hamburg
• 1974 establishments in West Germany

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