ThyssenKrupp Archive - GermanBoardNews

ThyssenKrupp & Wirecard: Excesses of the corporate governance system crisis – and opportunity for real change.

10. December 202010. December 2020

Dear readers of the GermanBoardNews, two weeks ago I announced at this point that I would be carrying out an updated assessment of the ThyssenKrupp case. Seiher has made the issue more explosive: The Supervisory Board was severely criticized for its decision to grant the Executive Board members special compensation. I also consider the bonuses to be very questionable in view of the situation of the Company. Admittedly, the whole …

Tops vs. Flops

Commerzbank & Cerberus: The end of Rhenish capitalism (II)

9. July 20209. July 2020

Ever since the Corona crisis everyone has been talking about social responsibility. But in practice things look different: Shareholder value apologists have won the next big victory in the shape of Cerberus

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Paul Singer: Attention, this man wants to split your supervisory board!

11. December 201911. December 2019

Paul Singer’s Elliott hedge fund is undoubtedly one of the most aggressive activists in Germany. Those responsible at ThyssenKrupp, SAP and Bayer can sing a song about this. “Spreading fear, cashing in, moving on,” is how former Siemens boss Klaus Kleinfeld describes the strategy in the current issue of Capital. The problem from the point of view of supervisory boards: The Singer squad knows how to put their finger in …

Tops vs. Flops

Achleitner & Merz: Guiltless guilty? The tragedy of the supervisory boards

16. October 201916. October 2019

ThyssenKrupp, Deutsche Bank, Volkswagen: 17 years after the publication of the German Corporate Governance Code, one scandal follows another. At the same time, criticism of Germany’s supervisory board chairmen as the supreme guardians of corporate culture is growing, understandably. WirtschaftsWoche, for example, recently stated a “cartel of clones” which, despite all the diversity Sunday speeches, led to monocultures in management. That’s true, but if you think we just need new …

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ThyssenKrupp: How Cevian dupes the Krupp Foundation

26. September 201926. September 2019

The beginning of the end of the industry icon ThyssenKrupp as we know it was not the serious management mistakes, for example in Brazil. Good board members and supervisory board members could have made up for that. In our opinion, the beginning of the end was the entry of the financial investor Cevian in 2013, which was acclaimed by the stock market, as this left too little time to get …

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Supervisory Board Chairs: How Paul Singer Gains the Sovereignty of Interpretation

27. September 201821. March 2019

In its new issue, Manager Magazin examines the business practices of the hedge fund Elliott by Paul Singer, who among other things is targeting ThyssenKrupp – and raises important questions that also bother us (“Will aggressive shareholder cliques rule the country in the future?”). The authors combine their critical and well-researched “Inside Report” with a side blow against ThyssenKrupp’s ex-Supervisory Board Chairman Ulrich Lehner: He had allowed himself to be …

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Campaigns: Why supervisory boards have to take the offensive now

20. September 201821. March 2019

An analysis of the “PR-Magazin”, worth reading, has sparked a discussion about whether and to what extent supervisory boards should communicate publicly. We believe this is how the majority opinion in the corporate governance community can be summed up: Yes, they should – but only on topics specific to the Supervisory Board and very cautious. We only agree halfway. In our opinion, the great reluctance towards the media shown by …

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Paul Achleitner: No more castling – also on the Supervisory Board!

5. September 201821. March 2019

A current study by the management consultancy Strategy& reveals worrying facts: Germany’s CEOs are staying on board for ever shorter periods of time. In 2017 alone, 24 of the 300 largest companies changed their CEO – more than in five years. The average”length of stay” has thus fallen to 5.1 years (international average: seven years). The main reason: Germany’s leaders often have to leave early – according to the study, …

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Hiesinger & Lehner: Why the critics attack the wrong people

29. August 201821. March 2019

In football, kicking is frowned upon, but unfortunately it is common practice in the economy. We are experiencing this again in the ThyssenKrupp case: via former Executive Board Chairman Heinrich Hiesinger and also retired Supervisory Board Chairman Ulrich Lehner, there is a veritable hail of criticism from the entire spectrum of the economy. Ex-investment banker Dirk Notheis described the decisions of the two in a FAZ column as “frighteningly irresponsible”, …

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ThyssenKrupp: How Armin Laschet could turn the corner

15. August 201821. March 2019

We pointed this out last week: In our view, one of the biggest problems in the ThyssenKrupp case is the lack of management expertise on the Krupp Foundation’s eleven-member board of trustees. Instead, scientists like the chairwoman Ursula Gather (mathematics) and her deputy Reimar Lüst (astrophysics) dominate, who do not know the practices of the corporate world – and therefore made serious mistakes in the conflict with the aggressive investors …