Germany's largest meat company, Tönnies, remains in family hands.
This was announced by the three shareholders Robert, Clemens and Maximilian Tönnies on Wednesday.
"With the clear statement for the common future as a family company, the shareholders are doing their part to end the rumors and speculations about a sale or partial sale of the company," said the company's announcement.
Jonas Jansen
Business correspondent in Düsseldorf.
Follow I follow
In March there had been reports that a buyer was being sought for the family business.
The company was valued at around 4 billion euros, with a turnover of more than 7.3 billion euros most recently, Tönnies is by far the largest meat company in this country and one of the largest butchers in Europe.
Tönnies had not commented on this at the time, but now stated that there had been "various options for the future design of the owner structure" in the first half of the year.
Now the family members have come to the conclusion that they should continue in the same way as before, because the current structure “is exactly the right one to continue the decades of successful work”.
The disruption process is also over
The company boss Clemens Tönnies holds 45 percent of the shares, his son Maximilian 5 percent. The other half belongs to Robert Tönnies, the son of the late company founder Bernd Tönnies. In the past, Robert Tönnies was often at odds with his uncle Clemens about the direction of the meat company, and there was also an arbitration request in court after the company was to be sold if the family members fell out. The shareholders have now also declared this “disruption process” to be over.
The company now wants to expand new business areas such as pet food or plant-based meat alternatives, the shareholders announced.
There used to be a dispute between Robert and Clemens Tönnies, especially when it came to strategy.
Robert asked his uncle to resign several times after more than 1,500 employees were infected with the corona virus last summer.
Even the abolition of contracts for work following political pressure did not go far enough for the co-owner.
How the argument started
It all started when Robert and his brother once gave their uncle 5 percent of the shares they had received after the death of their father Bernd. Robert later got his brother's shares, which led to a stalemate in the company's ownership: where two fighters each have half, little moves. The family members have met in countless trials in many courts, they have not only abused each other at lawyers.
Robert Tönnies' chip card was deactivated, and even his e-mails no longer reached the company. The butcher's peace from 2017, which was widely announced at a press conference and at which Robert even got a butcher's smock back, should not last long. In 2019, Robert filed the arbitration claim with an amount in dispute of 600 million euros. Because if there is a dispute, the group should be divided, as it was in a clause in the unification agreement of 2017. This dispute is now a thing of the past.
This could also have something to do with the fact that 65-year-old Clemens Tönnies, who has headed the company for more than 26 years, recently involved his son much more closely. “The success of the past decades does not let us tire of continuing and starting into the next generation,” it said in an internal letter to the employees. Robert Tönnies had already repeatedly called for his uncle to hand over power to his son. There may be a real generation change coming soon.