Instead, in 1898 Babcock & Wilcox Limited formed a German subsidiary company, "Deutsche Babcock & Wilcox Dampfkessel Werke Aktion-Gesellschaft" (Deutsche Babcock & Wilcox, DB&W). Robert Jurenka and Alois Seidle from Bohemia signed an agreement with Babcock & Wilcox to convert their Berlin sales office into a fully operational subsidiary. Babcock & Wilcox Limited granted DB&W an exclusive license to sell Babcock & Wilcox products in Germany and its colonies. The British parent retained majority ownership and representation in the board of directors of DB&W.  Jurenka and Seidle bought a boilermaking factory in Oberhausen in the Ruhr District and started manufacturing with mere thirty employees. In 1909 Deutsche Babcock added a factory in Gleiwitz to make steam generators. By 1927, the company had 1600 employees. The company has been continuously profitable and always paid dividends until (at least) 1939. Jurenka led Deutsch Babcock until his death in 1942. He was responsible for a company culture that was unusual for its time. The company offered health insurance from the start, a five-day workweek prior to 1914, 42½ hour workweeks by 1930, and pensions for retirees starting in 1938. After the end of World War I Deutsche Babcock engaged in a conflict with its parent company. The war had already terminated the ties between British and German businesses. DB&W acquired substantial market shares in Scandinavia, the Netherlands and the Baltic countries, which had formerly been a "British territory". The German management, riding high on the wave of continuously strong financials, openly contested their British parent's rights to these market and asserted de facto independence of DB&W. The parent company abstained from resuming active control, fearing that a conflict will destroy the market value of their investment. The conflict was resolved in the 1920 contract that largely upheld the German interests. DB&W received exclusive rights for Central and Eastern Europe, including the Baltic States; the British took over the Scandinavia. Poland was split between the British and German companies. The agreement set the vector for DB&W expansion: unlike many companies, Deutsche Babcock expanded its operations to the east, not to the west. Throughout the interwar period DB&W expanded their markets at the expense of the British parent. They made deals with clients in Scandinavia and Soviet Russia, and openly competed with the British in Poland. In 1932, when most of the original Babcock & Wilcox patents had expired and the economies were suffering from the Great Depression, Jurenka demanded complete abolition of license fees and royalties.