Reinert, a distributor of auto and industrial parts as well as safety equipment based in Leudelange celebrates this summer its 100th anniversary. It is not a trivial event given the competitive pressure it is encountering from foreign big box retailers, but also from competitors located across its border delivering similar products in Luxembourg.
Paperjam interviewed its general manager, Laurent De Volder, on 8 July 2025, who outlined the company challenges, the ownership structure and his vision for Reinert’s future.
Sylvain Barrette: How did the company start?
Laurent De Volder: Initially it was named Electro Auto and was based near the main train station. It moved to Leudelange in 1998. It went through several transformations before focusing on B2B in the auto parts, tools, and then safety equipment businesses. Nowadays, we sell everything that you will find in a garage. We also supply the construction sector and companies active in the cleaning business.
In December 2022, Frank Reinhardt--childless and without family members to take over the company--decided to sell the firm, not to American, French, German, or Belgian groups, which all expressed interest, but to a Luxembourg LBO group, Axiomatic. I am a shareholder along with Axiomatic which has a controlling interest in the firm. Axiomatic focuses on acquiring family businesses.
The goal of Axiomatic is to keep these historic companies and to develop them with the reality of globalisation because the economic challenge is obviously much more difficult today than 30 years ago.
What key values or strategies have allowed Reinert to remain competitive for nearly a century, especially against large international players like do-it-yourself big boxes?
When the client calls us, he knows that Reinert is cognisant of his needs. He also knows that we are delivering three times a day all over the country. Three deliveries a day is mandatory service for the auto sector. We pass this modus operandi on to our other customers. For instance, we can supply the required part within two hours. Our system is even connected to our suppliers, enabling clients to assess the expected delivery time.
Our B2B clients--90% of our customers/10% are coming in-store--are relying on our delivery service and are working with us on a day-to-day basis. We are almost part of their staff. Clients do not have that service when working with the behemoths.
All our client profiles must be set up in our systems to ensure seamless logistic dispatching. The delivery timing displayed on the client portal will therefore be adjusted according to the place of delivery. It is the most critical datapoint after the price and the technical features.
Retail clients have access to Reinert’s unique selling point in Leudelange in person, by telephone or by email. There is a priority to serve B2B clients who make 10 to 20 orders, minimally, every day.
Some may argue that your pricing must necessarily be higher than that of the big boxes. Is it fair?
For the same product, we are cheaper than other local competitors, not to mention that we offer free same-day deliveries even for trivial orders. I do not say that all prices are cheaper, but we ensure strategic monitoring.
Do clients have a dedicated representative? If the latter is absent, does another representative have access immediately to their profile?
Precisely. Our challenge is to be able to respond to clients as quickly as possible. Our society wants everything immediately, and we are in direct competition with Amazon. Our much greater responsiveness and a human relationship have enormous value.
Contrary to large groups where the service is provided more digitally or with an annual visit, Reinert has a dozen salespeople who are on the ground, plus 10 salespeople at the counter. These 12 reps are on the ground visiting clients to assess the customer’s needs to translate them to the experts themselves in contact with our suppliers before submitting the quotes.
Our turnover goes hand in hand with direct contact with the client in the field. You must create a relationship with the customer and not just an obligation to visit with a just quantified objective. You must know the customer; you must see how they work.
The major costs of a construction firm are related to concrete, scrap metal, etc. And then Reinert comes with tools, safety equipment and clothing, and mechanical parts. So, all these little things, which, if we add them up, are a “mountain of [product] references.”
By redirecting a significant part of their business to Reinert, clients can demand a slightly more competitive partnership through end-of-year discounts through a relationship that is a little more give and take.
How has digitalisation transformed your firm?
Today we have 100% traceability of all parts and services that go in and out of Reinert. In two clicks, I can see where an order is standing. All items are encoded in the system, which enables us to categorise products and to generate fine analyses, allowing us to improve our price competitiveness.
Digitalisation was brought to our clients. We are the only ones to have digital delivery slips signed by our customers that they can track on their portal in our system. They see the quotes, the order forms, the invoices in progress, what is paid/not paid with access to all the delivery forms signed by the person who received it, etc. We can easily prove to a client that we effectively delivered a specific product to X at time X.
Our new system enabled us to introduce--with minimum effort--an e-shop module directly linked to our inventory and accessible for our B2B clients. It took us one month to create our internet website.
How has the real estate slump affected your business?
It’s had an enormous impact. We took advantage of the crisis to give ourselves a digital makeover and to improve our efficiency over competitors. The market is not yet much better, as building permits have just started to be assigned to developers, but for construction that will start not earlier than 2026.
The situation is similar in garages, as electric cars that were sold new in the last three years require less maintenance. Yet, in the last year, car prices jacked up quite a bit along with higher financing costs that resulted in more large repairs after 60,000 km. Private clients prefer to pay €1,500 on a car part than €45,000 on a new car.
What is driving you in this role?
Before digitalising the company, I had to go through all the processes, an exercise that was supported by the gradual transition by the previous owners and managers. We would have gotten into trouble--too many manual steps--without updated IT systems.
We started the project in June 2023 and went live in January 2024 thanks to my consulting background and the help of key users internally. We now have the infrastructure to double our turnover. We will not have technical constraints preventing us from gaining market shares.
How do you share ownership and the roles?
I started in February 2023, and later in the year I was offered shares in the company to align interests. The DNA of Axiomatic is to hold on to companies for the long term. It is a motivating project for the general manager, who can see the impact of structural investments over 10 years, not two years.
Axiomatic is not a traditional LBO fund that will typically acquire a company for five to seven years and sell it off after doubling its value. The entrepreneurial project has driven my decision to become a shareholder of the company. It was not an obligation. Besides, there are several communications between general managers held by the Axiomatic to share HR, cash or IT issues. We share good practices, we focus on common projects, but we always remain independent and autonomous in our sector and our development. Each company operates at its own pace.
What is the shareholding split? They have 90% and you have 10%?
That’s about right. Managers can go up to 25% under certain conditions. However, my shares are linked to my working contract. I need to give away the stake once I leave the firm, and it must be returned to Axiomatic. The best guarantee for Axiomatic is to have managers who want to invest in the project for the long term because that is where the impact is felt the most.
Have you had M&A discussions with local players?
We were approached by two local firms with similar profiles to Reinert which made themselves available. However, the transactions were not consummated. Axiomatic is well-connected and can figure out what is for sale or not in the market. Often, there is a greater interest in integrating an outside company into one of its holdings than in keeping a new acquisition apart. Economy of scale is paramount, even more so in Luxembourg.
Do you plan a geographical expansion or an enlargement of the type of client?
Both. Everything that Hornbach has in stock and in the store. Everything we have in stock is in our warehouse. We have a multitude of parts, enabling us to respond at the counter to any request almost directly.
The strategic location of the building--next to highways--not only eases deliveries, but also enables us to serve retail clients, who contribute to paying the rent. Should we decide to expand geographically, that would be in the north of the country to serve our clients up there more rapidly while also maintaining a street shop. Our focus remains on Luxembourg, while we will not refuse to serve a client across and near the border.
Our international competitors across the border are maintaining strong pressure on our business. They noted that Luxembourg business is faster, and it pays more [than at home] while they can maintain lower rental and social costs. In addition, the requirements of Luxembourg clients are more elevated than those of clients abroad.
Which sectors or product categories do you see as major growth drivers in the coming years?
We are not active enough in the facility management business of large buildings in cities. We have the products but also services to place and maintain fire extinguishers as per the evacuation plans in buildings. We have a service and product offering for offices that is sometimes much more competitive than companies that only do facility management.
The state, its workshops, and the municipalities are also large clients. Yet they have started to buy ever more abroad, sometimes to save €4 for orders valued at €200-€300. We lobby with other local companies, and we discussed the matter with Lex Delles, the minister of the economy, during a recent visit to our premises a couple of months ago. Foreign businesses enjoy unfair competitive advantages.
As you celebrate 100 years, what does the next decade look like for Reinert?
Our priority is to develop in Luxembourg. Our longstanding clients are not coming here only because of historical relationships but because we offer them innovative solutions.
