BOA was originally founded by Henri Ehrmann & Co in 1872 in Karlsruhe, Germany. Up until August 2006 the BOA Group operated under the umbrella of the IWKA organization. The IWKA AG (Holding) sold IWKA BKT with all subsidiaries and shareholdings to the German Private Equity company in Berlin. Renaming IWKA BKT GmbH to BOA BKT GmbH. Over the subsequent years the current subsidiaries have been established: in 2008 BOA (Shanghai) Bellows Technology Co. Ltd. in China and in 2014 BOA RBT SRL in Arad, Romania.
In 2018 Ring International Holding AG became the new owner of the BOA Group.