Thyssenkrupp: Will Cevian and Elliott take power now?

17.07.2018

Thyssenkrupp loses the chief supervisor Ulrich Lehner
The financial investors take the power in Thyssenkrupp

After the departure of the CEO, the chief supervisor Ulrich Lehner leaves Thyssenkrupp. Is it Shodown with financial investors Cevian and Elliot? IG Metall is already in position, wants to combine with the largest single shareholder, the Krupp Foundation.

After the surprise resignation of the Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Ulrich Lehner, on Monday night, the Thyssenkrupp conglomerate is at a crossroads, says the protector of shareholders. Earlier, the director Heinrich Hiesinger had already been put under pressure by financial investors Cevian and Elliott

"The new head of the supervisory board must define the direction and we must quickly agree on the strategy" . ), Thomas Hechtfischer. The withdrawal of Lehner suggests that there is a deep conflict of direction. Is ThyssenKrupp an industrial group with different business areas or do you want to separate individual parts?

"It sounds like a hit and a jump." Lehner was pronounced against a breakup. "Now the question is, was he alone with this position and therefore resigned?" The Krupp Foundation is now more important than ever as the single largest shareholder. She had to take the handle of the craft in her hand and determine who would control the group in the future. The summit of the board of directors must be quickly re-equipped to avoid "limbo".

IG Metall wants to ally with the foundation

IG Metall already announced in an interview with the Reuters news agency that the group needed to be reinstated with the Foundation. "Co-determination is essential for the stability of the company at these times, and with the Krupp Foundation, we will defend it," said union secretary and vice-chairman of the supervisory board, Markus Grolms. he "deliberately takes this step to allow a fundamental discussion within the Supervisory Board on the future of ThyssenKrupp". Lehner has now called the main shareholders' lack of confidence as the reason for leaving. A joint agreement within the Supervisory Board on Strategic Alignment was no longer given. The Swedish financial investor Cevian has developed a pressure that does not go far enough for the conversion to work.

His decision should help to "create the necessary awareness among all concerned that a break in the business and the resulting loss of jobs is not an option – nor in the interests of the founder and in the interest of our country ". sure. The former boss of Henkel, Lehner, has been a member of the Supervisory Board of the Group since 2008 and took over leadership of the Board in 2013. Like Hiesinger, he was ordained until 2020.

Lehner had previously criticized "Psychoterror" individual main shareholders

The pressure had accumulated in front of the Swedish financial investor Cevian and the Elliot hedge fund, which did not go far enough from the conversion efforts of the Dax company. A few days ago, one of the most prominent members of the German supervisory board, Lehner, had accused some of the group's investors.

"We are not talking only at the general meeting, but at many meetings with our shareholders, some of which could even be described as a psychological terror," said Lehner in an interview published last week.

Some activist investors were known to ask managers who wanted to get rid of them to have psychiatric treatment later. However, the boss of the supervisory board of Thyssenkrupp has ruled out the dissolution of the group and its flourishing activity in the elevators, as both the Cevian investor and the Elliott hedge fund

Guido Kerkhoff demanded. , Chief Financial Officer Thyssenkrupp, The transition of CEO Heinrich Hiesinger takes over the management of the conglomerate. The council around Kerkhoff regretted the resignation of Lehner.

rei / dpa / Reuters