The drugstore entrepreneur Erwin Müller and his managing director Günther Helm have parted ways "by mutual agreement".
The drugstore chain in Ulm confirmed this in a brief statement.
In the future, Müller will run the company himself again.
This means that the successor plan in Germany's third largest drugstore chain is completely open again.
Gustave parts
Business correspondent in Stuttgart.
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Patriarch Müller is 89 years old.
He brought the Austrian Helm as his successor a good three years ago and announced that he wanted to withdraw step by step.
The 43-year-old lawyer came as a high-flyer in the retail industry and had previously managed the Aldi subsidiary Hofer in Austria.
He should not only become a managing director, but also receive company shares.
But Müller has been announcing his withdrawal for decades without having implemented it to date.
He is in a very similar situation to a number of other patriarchs, especially in the southwest, who still rule over their companies at an advanced age.
Müller is said to have a very traditional, sometimes erratic leadership style, which is why the drugstore chain is considered difficult to manage.
Some consider them ungovernable.
How the company, which has around 35,000 employees and sales of more than 4 billion euros, is doing economically is difficult to assess from the outside.
Müller rarely publishes figures.
After a period of weakness, the economy is said to have picked up again under Helm.