In 1923, Albrecht Schnizler built his first
hand drill in his parents' bakery in
Nürtingen. 50,000 copies of this drill were sold under the designation
No. 18 and one year later the Schnizler GmbH was founded. Co-founder Julius Closs was the owner of a brewery called Sonnenbrauerei in Nürtingen. The company moved into the rooms of this brewery located in Church Street. Walter Rauch became an associate in 1927 and managed the national and international distribution of the machines. In 1932, the company was renamed Metabowerke Closs, Rauch & Schnizler KG. The plant was spared serious damages during the war years, but in late autumn of 1945, a fire destroyed close to 75% of the manufacturing facilities. The reconstruction was completed in 1948. The company's rapid growth made it necessary to move to a new headquarters. Therefore, in 1953, the construction of a new plant in Nürtingen's industrial zone
Steinach was initiated. The relocation was completed in 1969 with a new administrative building. In the course of restructuring measures, the Metabo group acquired Elektra Beckum in 1999, a company from
Meppen in Northern
Germany. Combined with the takeover of two other (woodworking) machine manufacturers, this briefly made Metabo the second largest producer of stationary
woodworking machines in the world. However, in the next decade, they decided to focus mostly on producing smaller
power tools. In 2004, Metabo restructured the production and a plant in
Shanghai was established. The full integration of Elektra Beckum took place in 2006. In 2010, the disposal of the plant in Meppen marked the end of the restructuring process of the production plants. March 1, 2016, Metabo was acquired by
Hitachi Koki, part of
Hitachi Group. The Hitachi Group sold Hitachi Koki in March 2017 to HK Holdings Co., Ltd., an entity of the investment firm
KKR. == The company today ==