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Bata

Bata (Czech: Baťa) is a shoe company founded in Zlín in 1894 by the siblings Tomáš, Antonín and Anna Baťa.[1] The original Czechoslovak enterprise was nationalised after the Second World War. Today the brand is carried by the international company Bata, also known as the Bata Shoe Organization, headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland.[3][4]*

The company in Zlín

The three siblings founded the firm in September 1894. By 1908 Tomáš Baťa was its sole owner and employed more than three hundred workers who made over 3,000 pairs of shoes a day. By the end of the 1920s Bata had more than 5,000 employees.[1] Tomáš Baťa was mayor of Zlín from 1923 to 1932. At that time the company produced not only shoes but also machinery, tyres and films. In 1932 it operated in 56 countries and had over 30,000 employees.[2] Tomáš Baťa died in a plane crash in 1932 and leadership passed to his half-brother Jan Antonín Baťa.[1]

Nationalisation

The Zlín enterprise was nationalised in 1945. From 1 January 1949 the shoe works operated as the national enterprise Svit, and on the same day Zlín was renamed Gottwaldov. The town regained its original name on 1 January 1990.[3] The founder's son, Tomáš Baťa Jr., returned to Czechoslovakia from exile in Canada after 1989.[1] Tomas Bata University in Zlín bears his father's name.

The present-day company

The international Bata company has been based in Lausanne since 2004. It is divided into four business units covering Europe, Asia Pacific and Africa, Latin America and North America.[4] In 2026 it operated in about 50 countries with around 6,000 shops. Its only production plant in Central Europe was the factory in Dolní Němčí, acquired in 1992. In September 2026 the company announced that it would gradually end production there in 2027. It will keep its shop network in Czechia.[5]

Sources

  1. Český rozhlas Radiožurnál — 2014-09-04
  2. Univerzita Tomáše Bati ve Zlíně — 2021-04-03
  3. ZLIN.CZ — 2019-01-01
  4. ABCzech, Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Karlovy
  5. ČTK / České noviny — 2026-09-29

* The sources are collected and the preliminary text of this entry is drafted with artificial intelligence, on the instruction of the editorial staff; the entry has not yet been verified by an editor — report a mistake.