Thursday July 22, 2021
Family quarrel ended
Dr. Oetker is split up
The Oetker family has been fighting over the group’s strategy for years, now the feud has been resolved. Oetker is broken into two parts.
After a decade-long dispute about the direction of Dr. Oetker, the group is split up. The company announced in Bielefeld. The partners Alfred, Carl Ferdinand and Julia Johanna Oetker take over the subsidiaries Henkell & Co. Sektkellerei, Martin Braun Backmittel KG, the Budenheim chemical factory, some hotels from the hotel division and the August Oetker art collection under one roof.
“With this decision, the shareholder groups are overcoming their different ideas about the management and strategy of the Oetker Group. A corresponding separation agreement has been signed by all owners,” said an official statement from the Oetker Group.
The separation agreement should be completed this year. “The decision has no impact on the employees in the individual companies of the Oetker Group,” said the press release.
The part with the highest turnover with food (pizzas, baking mixes, frozen cakes and pudding), the Radeberger Group and some hotels remain in the hands of the shareholders of Richard and Philip Oetker, Rudolf Louis Schweizer, Markus von Luttitz and Ludwig Graf Douglas. In 2020, Dr. Oetker reports sales of 7.3 billion euros.
From the hotel group, the youngest siblings Alfred, Carl Ferdinand and Julia Johanna Oetker go under the name Geschwister Oetker Beteiligungs KG, the Oetker Hotel Management Company and the Hotel Le Bristol in Paris as well as the Château du Domaine St. Martin in Vence. The other shareholders keep the Brenner’s Park Hotel in Baden-Baden and the Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes. The beverage delivery service in the bottle, which has just been taken over, also remains with Richard Oetker’s society.
Container business sold
The family has been grappling with the dispute over alignment for many years. In 2017, Dr. Oetker from container shipping. For 3.7 billion euros, the Danish market leader Maersk took over Hamburg-Süd from East Westphalia, which with this step lost around half of its sales at the time.
When he died in 2007, Rudolf-August Oetker, the grandson of the company founder, left eight heirs from three marriages. His children were born from 1940 to 1979. There are sometimes almost 40 years between the half-siblings.
At the end of 2016, Richard Oetker (4th child from the 2nd marriage) had to give up management at the age of 65 according to the statutes. As early as 2010, when he took the helm at the helm, the family lines disagreed. He, known to the public as a kidnapping victim since 1976, was considered a buffer between the generations six years ago and prevented Alfred Oetker (1st child from 3rd marriage) at the helm. Carl Ferdinand is the 2nd child from the 3rd marriage.
For Dr. Oetker and its subsidiaries work around 37,000 people worldwide. The business areas were previously divided as follows. Food (Dr. Oetker, Conditorei Coppenrath & Wiese, Martin-Braun-Gruppe), beer and non-alcoholic beverages (Radeberger-Gruppe), sparkling wine, wine and spirits (Henkell, Freixenet), luxury hotels, chemical industry and logistics as well as the Bankhaus Lampe. The bank is pending the approval of the supervisory authorities before the sale. This had already been decided before the split.
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