Achilles Ginesta

 

 

In 1944 Achilles Ginesta founded his own company, the "Ginesta Immobilien, Export und Import".

 

 

The name Ginesta comes from Catalonia. Jaime Ginesta was born on 4 February 1889 in Palleja, a small suburb of Barcelona, the son of a large family.

Economically bad times led him to move to Switzerland, where he became a cook. So he did not need a woman at the stove, which his wife Anna Hug certainly appreciated. Anna and Jaime Ginesta had two children - Willi and Achilles. While Willi entered the insurance industry, Achilles, born in 1908, completed a commercial apprenticeship in Bern, where his father ran a handsome wine shop and the first Spanish restaurant in Switzerland - in the Mattequartier of Bern. One of his regular guests was the Dällenbach Kari, the tragicomic original of the city of Bern. A few years later Jaime sold the property, moved with his family to Zurich and leased a restaurant on Zentralstrasse. He managed the restaurant successfully for several years, but then decided to return to Spain.

    Achilles Ginesta has always been creative.
    In 1929 at the Seegfrörni he sold hot 
    sausages with his mother.

Jaime's decision to return to Spain turned out to be a bad idea. In the mid-30s he bought an apartment building in Madrid and moved with his family to the capital. Hardly arrived, the civil war broke out. The house was bombed, the family was able to leave the country with one of the last ships and returned to Switzerland without any belongings. There Achilles had to pay for the whole family. His father, who never became Swiss, was not allowed to work and his brother Willi was commanded to the front for a long time when the Second World War broke out.

Achilles' future wife, Marie Louise Meyer, born in 1916, grew up in the heart of the city of Lucerne, on the Weinmarkt. The family owned an old town house with a seed shop. At that time, seeds were a very important consumer good in a country dominated by agriculture. After the tragic death of her father - he lost his life in a storm on Lake Lucerne - her mother felt the patriarchal spirit of the time: women were not believed to be able to run a company at that time. With the kind help of the city authorities, her mother had to sell her shop and house at much too low a price. Marie Louise moved with her mother to Zurich and found work at a dentist. In 1939 they married and Marie Louise gave birth to six children in the following years.

Achilles doesn't go along with everything

Achilles first worked in the accounting department of the NZZ. Then he took up the position as authorized signatory at Haag. Oscar Haag, a smart businessman, owned a patent that allowed rubber threads to be woven into fabrics. A world-famous invention that made him a wealthy man in the midst of the turmoil of war. With the capital earned, Haag began to invest in real estate. Achilles was able to organize and accompany these businesses. In this way he became familiar with notarial services and gained an insight into the real estate business. While he liked it very much, he disliked the escapades of his boss: as a straightforward person he could not tolerate the romance between Haag and his secretary and gave up his job.

After an intermezzo as a representative of meat processing machines, he founded his own company, "Ginesta Immobilien, Export und Import", in 1944. It was domiciled in his 3.5-room apartment at Oberwachtstrasse 7 in Küsnacht, and he affixed a black sign with golden letters to the façade - the birth of the unmistakable Ginesta lettering.

Busy businessman

Achilles was a vital man full of ideas. Together with a Belgian friend he started export business to Belgian Congo and was the first to import Papermate ballpoint pens to Switzerland. When the four-digit telephone numbers changed, he immediately offered adhesive labels with which the new numbers could be affixed to the letters. He undermined high-current rationing with a clever invention: he had a frame constructed on which an iron could be fixed in reverse so that it could cook with the non-rationalized luminous flux. The yellow telephone repeater blocks developed by him are still available on the market today.

With the end of the war the real estate trade began to prosper strongly. Achilles' first important business was the sale of the large villa of the war-damaged Güttermann family to Robert Ober, owner of a department store in Zurich. The sale totalled 350,000 Swiss francs, which would correspond to CHF 15 million today. Like all brokers at the time, he rented premises in the centre of Zurich, at Rämistrasse 6. During this time nothing went outside the city.

A circle closes itself

The city of Zurich was booming, traffic increased sharply and parking spaces became scarce. After parking management was introduced with the "Zwanzigerautomaten", Achilles decided to move the offices back to the tax-favorable Küsnacht. In 1966 he moved into offices in a new building at Oberwachtstrasse 2, directly opposite the former rented apartment. The circle had closed.

 

The second generation moves in

André, the eldest son of Achilles and Marie Louise's children, discovered his affinity for real estate trading. He joined his father's company in 1969. A small step in the organisation chart, but a major leap in the organisational and strategic reorientation of Ginesta Immobilien.

 

André Ginesta

 

 

He brought with him extensive experience from his previous work in an international company.

 

 

 

André brought a great deal of experience in the areas of organisation, sales, communication and service design to the company from his previous professional activity in an international company. He focused on the strategic orientation of broker work and the systematic collection of all important property data as well as customer profiles. The facts of the properties had to be recorded, the offer system had to show which customer was interested in which properties, which he visited and what his reactions were. An essential element of his analogue CRM was a fan view index of the office supplies provider Rüegg Nägeli, which allowed 50 index cards to be viewed at a glance. He developed these further by having double cards produced, which displayed all important data for all objects. Rüegg Nägeli recognized the quality of the system and offered it to Ginesta's competitors!

As the new managing director, he focused early on computerization.

Head-shaking colleagues

André, a technophile, was enthusiastic about an office tool that was revolutionary in the late 1960s and early 1970s: the IBM ball-head typewriter with a memory capacity of 50 pages, every secretary's dream. This machine cost around 40,000 francs, which would be 200,000 francs today. His colleagues shook their heads when André bought it, but that made sense as he saved half a manpower.

    André Ginesta with his wife
    Evelyne - a pair on eye--
    height. Until today supported
    and she inspires her husband
    and her family for the success
    of the Ginesta Company.

Fit for computerization

In 1975 Achilles handed over the business to his son André. He still worked for the company for about a year on a part-time basis and then retired. André, as the new managing director, focused early on computerization and digital transformation and led the company in an organic growth and market adaptation process prudently through the 1980s and 1990s until the turn of the millennium.

 

André Ginesta, 50 anniversary of service, click here for the video.

 

The third generation takes over

Ginesta Immobilien has been a family business for 75 years. Claude Ginesta, CEO and owner, manages the company in a targeted and successful manner.

 

Claude Ginesta

 

 

Claude Ginesta joined the family business in 2001 and leads it today as CEO.

 

 

Since 2001, André and Evelyne Ginesta have been supported by their son and CEO Claude A. Ginesta. Since then, the company has taken a further step towards growth. Recent developments: In 2011, Ginesta Immobilien will open a branch in Horgen to be even closer to properties on the left bank of the lake and in the cantons of Schwyz, Zug and Aargau. The Chur location will be opened in 2012 in order to develop the entire Graubünden market area. With this geographical expansion, Ginesta Immobilien Graubünden was founded. Sascha Ginesta, son of Andrés brother Christophe, acts as partner and managing director in Chur. In 2013, Ginesta Immobilien will relocate its Küsnacht headquarters to Obere Wiltisgasse in generously proportioned premises that will accommodate the constantly growing team.

In 2015 the subsidiary Ginesta Immobilien Verwaltungen AG is founded with the participation of Ralph Geigle as managing director and partner. In 2016 the handover of the company is completed, Claude Ginesta buys the company from his parents and becomes CEO and owner of Ginesta Immobilien AG. In 2018, Ginesta Immobilien opens its own valuation desk under the management of a highly qualified real estate valuer. The company has further expanded its service activity by offering independent valuations. In the same year, an office is opened in St. Moritz to open up the flourishing market in the Engadine.

In 2019, the new Ginesta International business unit will be added. Ginesta International not only markets real estate all over the world, but is also looking for defined properties abroad.

 

Ginesta Immobilien today

Today, Ginesta Immobilien employs 37 people in four branches. The oldest employee is a proud 78, the youngest 21 years old. The longest serving employees are André Ginesta with 50 years and Beatrice Knapp with 20. The proportion of women in the company is 70 percent. But there are other interesting facts.

 

An overview of the most important milestones of Ginesta can be found here.

Here you can find the complete article in German for download as PDF.