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STOCKINGER
Vaulting ambition
A SAFE THAT’S AS BEAUTIFUL – AND WELL-ENGINEERED – AS ITS CONTENTS? THAT’S THE
VISION OF STOCKINGER CEO DOMINIK VON RIBBENTROP. GAVIN KNIGHT MEETS THE MAN
BEHIND BENTLEY’S LATEST PARTNERSHIP >
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STOCKINGER
Right Safe pair of
hands… entrepreneur
Dominik von Ribbentrop,
a man with a vision.
Far right Meticulously
engineered and crafted,
a Stockinger safe is a
beautiful artefact in its
own right.
Vaulting ambition continued
As the financial crisis has deepened there has been a rise in sales of
safes as people question the safety of banks and put their faith in the
“Bank of the Mattress”. In the popular imagination, the safe is usually a
grey bulky object hidden behind an ornately framed painting. Imagine
if there was a safe as beautiful as the prestige watches and jewellery it
contained, with a lock, like in Homer’s Iliad, “that no God knew how to
open.” This is the vision of German company Stockinger Safety First
Class, engineers of luxury safes. CEO Dominik von Ribbentrop is the
man behind that vision.
Dominik von Ribbentrop’s story is a very timely one as he started in
investment banking and private equity, grew disillusioned and became
an entrepreneur. In acquiring the Stockinger company he discovered a
nugget of gold in the gravel deposits at the bottom of the stock market.
I meet Dominik for lunch at 1 Lombard Street in the City in mid-
October. He’s just flown in for business meetings from Munich to City
Airport. We are surrounded by bankers and financial professionals in
frenzied discussion about the credit crunch, their chatter echoing
around the neoclassical interior up to the domed skylights by Pietro
Agostini. The restaurant is appropriately housed in a former banking
hall. Dominik does not regret leaving the world of private equity and
investment banking. “I enjoyed it very much but it never gave me 100
per cent fulfilment,” he says.“I see myself as an entrepreneur and I really
like discovering great stories and great companies, seeing value where
people don’t see it. I would rather spend a day with my employees at
the Octoberfest and hear that they enjoy working for me than carry out
those soulless transactions.”
Dominik’s story is one of the classic entrepreneur. As a 10-year-old
young boy growing up in Germany he showed his entrepreneurial
spirit. After a heavy snowfall he would run around his neighbours’
houses and charge them one deutschmark to clean their driveway. This
calls to mind the five-year-old Warren Buffett, who set up a stand on his
family’s sidewalk and sold Chiclets, a brand of chewing gum, and
lemonade to passers-by. Similiarly the young Dominik would pick
cherries with his brother and sell them to passing cars.
Like many entrepreneurs, Dominik senses that there will be some
excellent investment opportunities in the downturn. “Now it will be
good to buy companies again in six to nine months when they are
cheap.” He says. After he quit the City he built up a successful dotcom
called Webmiles which was later sold to Bertelsmann, the transnational
media corporation. It was, however, the Stockinger luxury safe that
became his passion as a business.
“I was looking round for different companies and came across
Stockinger. In 2000 it was near bankruptcy in the aftermath of the
September crisis. As soon as I saw the safes I was immediately attracted
to them as pieces of art – the way they were manufactured, the way
they were laquered. I decided they were a fantastic product which
combined elements of what Germany stood for – engineering, high
tech metal, like the car industry. I also liked design and art. I had run a
company and run a gallery so this attracted me.”
Dominik’s passion is to manufacture the ultimate safe which is as
precise as a prestige timepiece and as beautiful as a work of art. Having
bought the company, he faced the challenge of learning about the art
of safemaking and implementing changes to bring his dream about.
“Still now five years after purchase I am implementing change, but
what was really crucial was to reorganise the supplier base because we
can only be as good as our weakest supplier. So I tried to build up
alternatives for every crucial supplier. There was a big change of
personnel in manufacturing.”
The classic Stockinger safe is carefully primed, painted and sanded
off during an 18-stage manufacturing process. This process takes several
weeks and is completed with a finish of the finest carnauba wax, which
produces a softer look and lends an unusual optical depth to the paint.
The next challenge for Dominik was to build the profile of his product.
“We noticed our safes went very well with watches. People who like
watches and safes also like beautiful cars.” Dominik says. “So I started
building the brand, with our partnership with Bentley.” Bentley is a
strong partner for Stockinger because of the company’s commitment
to the highest quality of craftsmanship and beautiful exterior colours
FOR DEVOTEES OF FINE MECHANISMS THE ‘ARNAGE’ SAFE IS AN ELABORATE WATCH SAFE
EQUIPPED WITH STATE-OF-THE-ART WATCH WINDERS FOR EXCEPTIONAL TIMEPIECES, SUCH
AS THE ‘BREITLING FOR BENTLEY’ RANGE.
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Below left and right
‘Stockinger for Bentley’
safes provide a secure,
beautiful showcase for
cherished possessions.
A Carnauba wax finish
gives extra depth to
the paint.
Vaulting ambition continued
and interior materials. This partnership resulted in the “Stockinger
for Bentley” limited edition series of 400 safes, available in two
editions: the “Arnage” for watch collectors and the “Continental”
for jewellery lovers.
Collectors of fine watches often have a different timepiece to
suit their mood or the occasion. For devotees of fine mechanisms
the ‘Arnage’ safe is an elaborate watch safe equipped with stateof-the-art
watch winders for exceptional timepieces, such as the
‘Breitling for Bentley’ range. The watch winders run almost
noiselessly allowing for a long maintenance and disturbance-free
life for the timepieces.
Some of Stockinger’s clients now reside on the French Riviera
in magnificent villas on the tranquil peninsula of Cap Ferrat. One
of the most beautiful stretches of the Mediterranean coast, this is
also the haunt of legendary jewellery thief John Robie in Alfred
Hitchcock’s thriller ‘To Catch A Thief’. In the 1955 classic, Cary Grant
played a retired cat burglar nicknamed “the Cat” who would clean
out the jewel boxes of wealthy victims and escape over the
rooftops, while guests were downstairs at a masked ball.
Dominik knows the cat burglar image, but insists that the
modern jewellery thief is far less sophisticated. “They will usually
try to pull the safe out of the wall and carry it off to a more remote
location and try to open it,” he explains.
“They can use a blow torch to burn through the metal and
often will bring a host of hardware tools obtained from the local
DIY store. It can take them up to seven hours to break into a
conventional safe.” So far no one has broken into a Stockinger safe.
Stockinger safes are equipped with an emergency bolt mechanism
which permanently bolts the safe in the event of a forced break-in.
They have a Stocktronic locking system controlled by a concealed
key pad and a “silent alarm” for threatening situations. Finally
there is a top secret ultra-hard blend of polymers used in its multiwall
construction.
Secure from the modern jewel thief, the ‘Continental’ safe
could be the ultimate storage solution for jewellery. It has six
different trays for large or small rings, brooches, earrings, wide or
narrow necklaces, chokers, cufflinks and bangles. Customers can
present their precious objects at home in a style befitting the
finest items made by master jewellers and goldsmiths.
Outside business, one of Dominik’s passions has been riding
the infamous Cresta Run in St. Moritz. This treacherous high-speed
sled run is not for the faint-hearted. It involves tobogganing
headfirst down a steep ice gully three quarters of a mile long
through several terrifying corners. The total drop is 514 feet. Riders
reach speeds of 80 miles per hour by the time they reach the
bottom. If they are out of control they will fly out at the notorious
Shuttlecock bend and risk serious injury if their sled collides with
them at high speed. Five riders have been killed on the Cresta Run.
Dominik says he gets scared every time he goes down
“You fly out and there is snow and straw, and it can be a bit
dangerous.” He says. “More importantly if you fly out you don’t
have the chance of winning anymore.” He is very competitive and
has finished in 51 seconds. The world record is 50 seconds. “To be
able to get a good time through Shuttlecock you can’t go too low
or too high,” he says.“You need to ride a few centimetres below the
rim. I sometimes compare it to entrepreneurship. You need to take
risks, you need to take it to the limit, but still you need to control it.
There is a risk of falling out or failing but you have to take the risk
to achieve a good time.”
Gavin Knight writes for Esquire, Monocle, Guardian, Newsweek and
other publications.
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