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New Era at Stollwerck Barry Callebaut announces Board of Directors - important strategic issues are still outstanding Frankfurt, 8th August: The sales of Stollwerck to Barry Callebaut has formally been performed and a new board appointed. Now, the future company structure and the strategy on the German and international market has to be determined. The new president of Stollwerck, James D. Forman knows, what awaits him. After the Stollwerck acquisition by the Swiss Barry Callebaut AG has been approved by the anti-trust commission, he now has to create a new company. The 50-years old Californian is supposed to continue on a large scale what he had started at Barry Callebaut or its precursor Van Houten in Nordersted four years ago: to establish a national and international tight and profitable consumer business unit. How to do calculations - he learned a long time ago. In the course of his career he worked in top positions at Sensormatic Electronics, Price Waterhouse and Wells Fargo Bank. However, Stollwerck is a completely new challenge: the company generates a sales volume of EUR 530 million and consists of 8 factories in Germany, Belgium and Switzerland with 2,500 staff. When adding Barry Callebaut's consumer unit (Van Houten) with a not exactly specified amount, the total turnover amounts to SF 2.5 billion. Apart from Belgium and North America the rather small consumer business of the group, of which Klaus J. Jacobs is the majority shareholder with almost 70%, takes mainly place in Germany. The factory in Norderstedt, a company for private labels, has just been equipped with most modern lines. In view of the massive over-capacities in the German chocolate market and also within the Stollwerck Group, an intesive review of the cost structures of all factories should be due, thus also in Cologne, Berlin and Thuringia. Officially, Barry Callebaut assumes, that it will take about 2 years time. But observer expect first decisions soon. President James Forman can count on a number of experienced managers: Klaus Friedrich who was the financial director of Stollwerck continues to be member of the board. The acid test for profitability of the factories should fall into the responsibility of Paul Robert Entgens, the new president for operations. Like Forman, 38-years old Entgens is from California and used to work for Van Houten. Before he started working in Norderstedt, he had worked for the Stollwerck subsidiary Gubor for six years and before that for Procter & Gamble. The new masters in Cologne show continuity towards the customers. That's what especially Eduard Kaiser, the sales director and Hans Werner Grieme's right hand man, stands for. Grieme, the present sales president retires formally, but will act in an advisory capacity to Forman until the end of this year. A board of sales directors is not planned for the time being. While Kaiser is responsible for the domestic sale, Norderstedt's manager Philip B. de Jarcy is reponsible for international sales, strictly speaking for activities in Western Europe as all Eastern Europe businesses were sold to Kraft. The trade does not expect a change in the market appearance of the consolidated enterprise. The company's figurehead is the increasingly successful Sarotti Moor, completed by the brands Gubor, Alpia and Stollwerck. Positioning of private labels, for example with Aldi, is strenghtened. The competitors do not fear that the new goup of the world largest cocoa processing company Barry Callebaut gain raw material advantages. Because - according to an observer - it already was under Hans Imhoff, that one bargained until blood was boiling. With Imhoff's and his family's leave, an era comes to an end, on which the successful post-war-entrepreneur Dr. Hans Imhoff had a forming influence. More than 2,000 small shareholders were looking forward to his annual appearance at the general meeting. From them, the Swiss want to buy out the 4% remaining shares. |
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