People
Three years after leaving the chair of BASF Board of Directors, Jürgen Hambrecht is set to take the helm of the chemical group’s Supervisory Board. According to a company communiqué, his candidature was proposed during a board meeting on February 20. This means that the former BASF CEO extended by a year the two-year cooling-off period required by law. He is taking the sceptre of Eggert Vorscherau who is resigning from the board after 40 years with the company. His investiture will be celebrated during the shareholders’ meeting set for May 2, which is when Alison Carnwath will join the BASF Supervisory Board, and, in all likelihood, have to chair the key Supervisory Board examining committee. Max Dietrich Kley, by contrast, is no longer eligible, and is another long-serving company employee resigning from the board.
Casten Spohr is the new CEO of Deutsche Lufthansa. After months of seeking from both within and without the company, the Supervisory Board selected the new top man from within. The appointment was ratified by Lufthansa on February 7. 47-year-old Spohr was deemed a front-runner to take over from outgoing chairman Christoph Franz from the very outset.
A mere one day after Jörg Schwagenscheidt’s resignation from GSW Immobilien, Andreas Segal was appointed CFO of Deutsche Wohnen. GSW Immobilien’s former CFO will replace Lars Wittan who is to receive a new post within the Board of Management of GSW Immobilien’s parent company.
Helmut Rothenberger is to be the future watchdog of machine-tool producer DMG MORI SEIKI. On February 4 the tribunal of Bielefeld appointed him to the Supervisory Board to succeed Hans Henning Olten with immediate effect. The former head of the Supervisory Board had already resigned the chair; six months ago he stood down in favour of Raimund Klinkner. The former GILDEMESTER group made a passing, spare reference devoid of thanks to the resignation of Kathrin Dahnke. Rüdiger Kapitza has been appointed interim head of the Control, Finance, Accounts, Taxation and Risk Management Divisions that she had headed. No successor to the vacant post is presently in sight.
Karl Ulrich Garnadt will take the place of Stefan Lauer. Fraport conferred the appointment after Lauer resigned his mandate at the end of 2013 The tribunal appointed Garnadt interim representative of the major Lufthansa shareholder until the company meeting on May 30. Previously a board member of Lufthansa Passage Airlines, he was chief of hub management and passenger services.
On February 26, Gerhard Weber confirmed that after this fiscal year, towards end October he will retire as business operative of Gerry Weber International to join the Supervisory Board. Ralf Weber and the other remaining members of the Board of Directors David Frink and Arnd Burchardt will have equal rights after his departure and will probably appoint an in-house spokesperson for the East Westphalia fashion company
As of February 15 Claus Vielsack is a member of the board of directors of TecDax listed STRATEC Biomedical. A graduate in chemistry, Vielsack has been with the company since 1998 covering a variety of managerial positions in technology development The new board member will now work together with Marcus Wolfinger, Robert Siegle and Bernd Steidle.
As the final curtain falls on the general meeting on June 13, Supervisory Board chair Lutz Ristowe and vice chair Ronald Frohne will leave TAG Immobilien, the former for reasons of age and the latter for personal reasons. Their successors are expected to be Hans-Jürgen Ahlbrecht and Ingo-Hans Holz. The business skills and long experience in the German real estate market that these two men possess are ideal qualifications for a position on the TAG Supervisory Board. The chair of the board will probably be entrusted to Lothar Lanz who was CFO at Axel Springer from 2009 to March 2014. Lanz joined the MDax-listed Tag Supervisory Board last year and he is rumoured to be the candidate preferred by the outgoing chair. As of March 31, the present CFO Georg Griesseman will leave the Hamburg-based real estate group which he joined in 2011. He leaves with the thanks of the Supervisory Board; Martin Thiel has been appointed as his successor with effect from April 1.
Andreas Renschler has been summoned to supervise the merging of the commercial vehicle business of Scania and MAN , and the “Pack and Loads” produced by the Volkswagen group. The Supervisory Board selected the former head of Daimler’s commercial vehicle division to succeed Leif Östling on the group’s board of directors. Contractual obligations prevent Renschler from taking up his new post before February 2015.
Election of the board of the German Investor Relations Association DIRK
Frankfurt, Germany, 05. March 2014 – The general meeting of the German Investor Relations Association DIRK elected the group’s entire board for a further two years on Friday. Dr Stephan Lowis (RWE AG) is henceforth the president, with Martin Ziegenbalg (Deutsche Post DHL) assuming the role of vice president. Claudia Kellert (Gerry Weber International AG) was confirmed in her capacity as the auditor. The following individuals were likewise appointed to the DIRK board: Horst Bertram (Baader Bank AG), Tobias Erfurth (Symrise AG), Thomas Franke (Deutsche Beteiligungs AG), Oliver Maier (Fresenius Medical Care AG & Co. KGaA) and John Paul O’Meara (adidas AG).
The newly elected president, Dr Stephan Lowis, announced that he would continue the work of the previous Board of Management during his term in office, and said that he intended to make more of a name for DIRK over the next two years outside of the IR community as well. “We are a strong association, and CFOs and CEOs should be aware of us too.”
He also thanked the outgoing members of the board, in particular the president Magdalena Moll (BASF SE), for their many years of voluntary service. The managing director of DIRK, Kay Bommer, stressed the importance of voluntary service, which, he said, a group like DIRK was reliant on.
This year, DIRK’s spring general meeting was held in Salzburg at the invitation of Palfinger AG. More than 120 participants from the investor relations sector took an in-depth look at topical capital market matters in presentations such as social trading, innovations of GCGC 2013, changes in the job of the ir-manager, integrated reporting, media relations, changed conditions of roadshows, follow-up issues of corporate bonds. A panel discussion on the topic of supervisory boards for the capital market moderated by Kay Bommer and involving Dr Christine Bortenlänger (Chief Executive, Deutsches Aktieninstitut), Viktoria Kickinger (Managing Partner, INARA) and Oliver Maier was recorded for the Director’s Channel, the online TV channel for supervisory boards. A summary of the discussion will briefly be available for download at www.dirk.org.
GfK: the boss is always the boss
The GfK AG Supervisory Board of market research company GfK AG has extended its contract with CEO Matthias Hartmann for a further five years until 2019. Hartmann has been at the helm of the company with its 13,000 employees in 100 countries since 2011. He had previously held a variety of positions in IT colossus IBM. GfK is an SDax listed company.
According to the Supervisory Board, Hartmann is expected to push ahead with programme of strategic and operational development already embarked upon. According to “Manager Magazin”, last year GfK made losses amounting to some 45 million Euros after taxation due to amortisation of immaterial company assets. Rumour has it that GfK made forays abroad buying up excessively priced companies that failed to come up to expectations.
Vossloh: The dissolution of the entire Board of directors
The Supervisory Board of railway technique specialists Vossloh AG requested the resignation of the entire board of directors. CEO Werner Andree and colleague Norbert Schiedeck have agreed with the watchdogs to leave the company by March 31, 2014.
The position of CEO will in all likelihood be filled by former Siemens manager Hans Schabert, an acknowledged railway expert. He will be flanked on the Board of Directors by Oliver Schuster, former CFO of SKW Metallurgie who will head financial affairs previously managed by Andree in a double role, and by Volker Schenk replacing Schiedeck as head of Technology, Sales and Human Resources. Major shareholder Heinz Hermann Thiele is also chair of Vossloh’s Supervisory Board as well as being chair of its human resources commission. Since entering the company he has progressively built up his stake which now stands at 30 percent.. The founder’s family lost the battle for control and in the end sold their share package for approximately 200 million Euros to institutional investors. Thiele who is a millionaire is also owner of Knorr-Bremse, and to the question put by German periodical Wirtschaftswoche as to his presumed intention of acquisition or merger of the two replied in the negative.
Flatex: looking after the daughter
Thomas Schmidt of Flatex Holding AG is resigning his post on the Board of Directors at the end of January to manage subsidiary company Aktionärsbank Kulmbach full time. Schmidt, an expert in banking and financial affairs, has been looking after the company since last May, Stefan Müller, who joined the Flatex Board of Directors in 2003 is, by contrast, staying put.
Schmidt joined the Board of Directors of financial service provider and online broker Flatex Holding AG in 2012. He had been head of company development, legal affairs human resources and risk management. By obtaining its banking licence in September, Flatex’s subsidiary company will be in a position to bolster the group’s banking and brokerage activities.