Founding and first years
In 1957, Fernseh-Hugo Forster OHG was founded, a company whose main activities included the installation of main antenna splitters as well as of communications and surveillance equipment. In 1983, Die Drillisch-Vetriebs-und Servicegesellschaft Nachrichten Technik mbH was founded in Maintal. In 1985, its product line was expanded to include mobile telephones from C-Netz.
In 1989, telefax devices were introduced into the market. From 1991 onward, digital alarm systems for firefighters were also introduced to the market, as well as equipment for fire and rescue control centers.
In 1992, Fernseh-Forster Hugo Forster OHG was converted into Forster Kommunikationselektronik GmbH. Two years later, ''Drillisch Vetriebs-Serviceges. Nachrichtentechnik mbH & Co. KG'' was founded and began its operations as a service provider of mobile services for the D2 network. In 1997, Drillisch AG was founded by Hans Jochen Drillisch, Marc Brucherseifer, and Nico Forster. As a formerly legally independent business, the Drillisch Group arose as a subsidiary of Drillisch AG. As a service provider, the company, which at the time owned none of its own network infrastructure, purchased telephone units from network operator Mannesmann Mobilfunk on a large scale, bundled them in special tariff packages, and sold them to private consumers. In their former core business, the sale of mobile telephones, fax devices, and other accessories, the company earned about 48% of its total revenue of 117.5 million marks.
Initial public offering
The former Drillisch AG had its initial public offering in 1998. A total of up to 600,000 ordinary shares were issued with a nominal value of five marks each (including Greenshoe options of 40,000 shares), from which 360,000 stemmed from an increase in the capital stock to nine million marks and 240,000 shares stemmed from the portfolios of existing shareholders.
In 1998, the company received a landline license. One year later, their offers expanded to include internet-by-call access services.
In 2000, their landline license was sold to Elisa, a Finnish telecommunications firm, and 1&1 reoriented itself towards mobile internet services in order to avoid bankruptcy. The company established the search engine Acoona for web and WAP services. The further expansion of internet content could be observed with the acquisition of Open-Net Oy, a Finnish WAP-programming and content-creation firm.
In 2001, Drillisch became available for sale.
On 16 February 2004, the company UMTS began to market products for D2 Vodafone via subsidiaries Alphatel GmbH and Victorvox AG. On 31 March 2005, the then-board spokesman, Marc Brucherseifer, resigned from leadership of his own volition. Since 2006, board spokesman Paschalis Choulidis planned to united Talkline and Debitel under the name Mobilcom-Debitel, both for tax reasons and due to an increasing saturation of the mobile-phone market.
In January 2007, Drillisch acquired competitor Telco Services GmbH from Idstein im Taunus, which had over 300,000 customers (10% prepaid) for an estimated purchase price of 40 to 50 million euros. On 19 December 2008, it became publicly known that Drillisch AG was in the process of becoming a majority shareholder of eteleon e-solutions AG, a firm specializing in internet-based marketing. The purchase contract of 71.54% was put into effect in March 2009.[22] Since 16 August 2009, eteleon e-solutions AG (100% b2c.de GmbH; discoTEL, DeutschlandSIM, eteleon) became a full subsidiary of Drillisch AG.[23]
Attempted takeover by Freenet mobile-communications division and its shareholdings by United Internet
On 22 August 2007, Drillisch announced that their share of 10.07% of competitor Freenet AG would increase to 28.56%. At the time, however, the purchase stood under review of antitrust authorities. In September 2007, Drillisch and United Internet presented to the public a collaborative plan for the acquisition of Freenet. With Holding MSP, Drillisch and United Internet controlled about 29% of Freenet AG. Holding MSP belonged to both companies equally.
In a quarterly report on 31 October 2007, Drillisch CEO Paschalis Choulidis first publicly expressed plans regarding the acquisition of Freenet's mobile-communications division (see Mobilcom). On 20 November 2007, United Internet announced that negotiations for the acquisition of Freenet had failed. By all accounts, Drillisch CEO Choulidis was surprised by this announcement and was only informed of such by a mandatory announcement released by United Internet.
At the end of November 2007, United Internet surprisingly purchased 5.15 million Drillisch shares, thus holding 9.68% of the company. On 14 December, Drillisch and United Internet announced the further increase of MSP Holding GmbH's ownership of Freenet to 20.05%.
On 20 December 2007, Freenet also declared the end of negotiations regarding the acquisition of its mobile-communications division by Drillisch.[24]
In October 2009, United Internet sold its shares of Drillisch AG.[25]
Dispute and settlement regarding commission payments with Deutsche Telekom AG
In November 2011, Deutsche Telekom canceled its cooperation with Drillisch AG and its subsidiaries without prior notice, as Drillisch subsidiary Simply had been accused of commission fraud with prepaid mobile contracts.[29] According to statements by Manfred Balz from Telekom, since February 2011, Drillisch AG had activated tens of thousands of mobile connections without having any actual customers for them.
Telekom also filed criminal charges against the company.[29] After these events became widely known, the stock prices for Drillisch AG quickly sank up to 44%.
Drillisch decidedly disputed Telekom's accusations and explained that Simply fully complied with the provisions of its Telekom contracts.[30]
On 21 March 2012, Drillisch announced the end of its legal dispute with Deutsche Telekom AG. Both companies entered into an agreement for the clearing and settlement of their contractual relationships and for the end of any pending civil proceedings. One month later, on 19 April 2012, the state attorney's office of
Cooperation with Telefónica
In 2014, when the merger between Telefónica and E-Plus was approved by the EU, albeit under certain conditions, Drillisch received the opportunity to lease 20% of Telefónica's mobile-network capacity. Drillisch's corporate subsidiary, MS Mobile Services GmbH (MS Mobile) entered into the contract in 2015 for a starting period of five years with the potential for extension up to 15 years total. This capacity was made available as Mobile Bitstream Access (MBA) in the form of data transfer and data volume. Until 2020, the used proportion of the total network capacity may be increased to 30%.[32][33] This contract has made Drillisch the only MBA MVNO on the German mobile-services market.
In this context, Telefónica sold 102 of its own storefronts as well as 199 of its partner shops to the Drillisch Group.[34]
Acquisition by United Internet
As both companies announced on 12 May 2017, the majority of Drillisch shares would be acquired by United Internet by December 2017 as part of a reverse takeover. It was furthermore planned for United Internet to provide Drillisch AG with its own mobile-network and DSL divisions, namely 1&1 Telecommunication SE, by way of two real capital increases. As the former company boasted a much higher shareholder value, the transaction yielded majority shares of Drillisch for United Internet AG (at least 73.7%). The conglomerate was worth an estimated 3.7 million euros. With over 12 million mobile-services customers, Drillisch would become comparable to freenet AG, to date the fourth-largest service provider of the German market.[35][36] In January 2018, the company changed its name from Drillisch Aktiengesellschaft to 1&1 Drillisch Aktiengesellschaft.[37]
On 24 September 2018, 1&1 Drillisch was additionally adopted into the TecDAX listing of MDAX, as part of a restructuring of stock indices.[38]
Clearinghouse on internet copyright laws
Since February 2021, 1&1 Drillisch has been a member of the Clearingstelle Urheberrechte im Internet (eng. approx. Clearinghouse on internet copyright laws).[39]
