Galledia Group acquires Freicom
Ruth and Reinhard Frei, owners of Freicom Communications, have transferred their shares to the Galledia Group, thereby implementing their succession plan. Galledia will continue Freicom Communications’ event operations under the new company Galledia Event AG. Reinhard Frei will remain managing director.
Freicom was founded in December 1993 by Ruth and Reinhard Frei in Balgach as Reinhard Frei & Partner. Among the clients of the first hour were Sparkassa Berneck (today Alpha Rheintal Bank), the Swiss Petroleum Association (today Avenergy Suisse) and the suburb (today Economiesuisse). Through the takeover and re-founding of Rhema, Rheintalmesse, and the founding of the Rheintaler Wirtschaftsforum in 1995, the Rheintaler agency quickly became a permanent fixture in the PR and event sector in eastern Switzerland.
Time to cut back
In the marketing, PR and event sector, Freicom has been one of the leading agencies in eastern Switzerland for 27 years, managing and handling well-known national mandates. Among the agency's milestones were the project management of Eastern Switzerland's appearance at Expo.02, Aua Extrema, the founding of the Swiss SME Day and various business conferences, or the campaigns for EgoKiefer, Repower, Huber watches and jewelry and many other major clients. Now it is time for the two founders to step back and arrange their succession. For the event sector, a suitable successor has been found in the Galledia Group, based in Berneck, with whom Freicom can look back on many years of successful collaboration.
Galledia Group ideal for succession
With over twenty of its own publishing titles, Galledia Fachmedien is one of the most important specialist publishers in Switzerland. In addition to preparing qualified specialist information in print and digital, Galledia Fachmedien organizes industry-specific networking events for its target groups. With the takeover of the entire Freicom team and the renaming of Freicom Communications AG to Galledia Event AG, Galledia gains a lot of competence and experience in this field. This will be used to further expand the new event area for the entire Galledia Group, both offline and online, and to successfully continue Freicom's existing, established events in Galledia Event AG. The goal is to maintain the strong position in business conferences in German-speaking Switzerland and to build up new events.
Competence and continuity retained
Reinhard Frei and his daughter Alexandra Vorburger-Frei continue to make their know-how and many years of experience in the event sector available to Galledia Event: Reinhard Frei with a part-time job as managing director, Alexandra Vorburger-Frei as deputy managing director. Together with the proven Freicom team, this ensures that in addition to new Galledia Event projects, the existing major events such as the Rheintaler Wirtschaftsforum, the Wirtschaftsforum Thurgau or the Ostschweizer Personaltag can continue to be successfully carried out for the benefit of partners and participants. Reinhard Frei will continue to work as a communications consultant in addition to his Galledia part-time job and a mandate at Micarna.
