The company was founded in 1894 in the town of Heilbronn and grew to one of Europe's largest producers of wood-based materials.

The company became excessively leveraged and made overpriced acquisitions, aimed primarily at the later struggling U.S. housing market.

When the real estate crisis came to a head in 2008, Pfleiderer's high debt load turned into a financial disaster which led the company into bankruptcy in March 2012.

[2][3] With almost one billion euros of net debt, Pfleiderer became one of the largest corporate failures of recent German history.

[5] Since January 2016 the company belongs to Pfleiderer Group, headquartered in Wrocław (Poland) and listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange.