Adolf Merckle

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Adolf Merckle (born March 18, 1934 in Dresden ; † January 5, 2009 in Blaubeuren ) was a German entrepreneur , investor and lawyer .

Life

Adolf Merckle was born on March 18, 1934 in Dresden into an entrepreneurial family. His father Ludwig ran the second generation of " Adolf Merckle en gros ", founded in 1881 in Aussig , Bohemia ; he had taken over his father's company in 1915 and expanded it to include two pharmaceutical factories. After the expropriation, the family fled the Sudetenland in 1945 . Ludwig Merckle rebuilt Merckle GmbH in Blaubeuren at the foot of the Swabian Alb , the home of his wife Luise (1900–1984). This was the granddaughter of from Ravensburg coming Julius Spohn , who had a reputation as textile and cement contractor a name.

After studying law in Tübingen , Hamburg and Grenoble , Merckle worked as a lawyer in Hamburg until 1967. In 1967 he inherited the pharmaceutical company in Blaubeuren from his father. At that time the company had 80 employees and had a turnover of four million German marks per year. Shortly after assuming the inheritance, Merckle began to expand the pharmaceutical company into a widely branched group. In 1973 he founded the company Ratiopharm , now based in Ulm , in Blaubeuren , which produces generics . In 1991 he introduced eco-controlling. In 1994 he founded the pharmaceutical wholesaler Phoenix Pharmahandel AG.

Merckle's entrepreneurial commitment was broad. As the owner of the Merckle group of companies , he had an extensive and varied network of holdings - from HeidelbergCement to the snowcat manufacturer Kässbohrer , the Metallwerke der Zollern GmbH , the Gruschwitz Textilwerke and the ski lift in Kleinwalsertal . Through his majority stake in the electrical engineering company VEM Sachsenwerk , he was also present in the wind power plant business.

In 1994 he acquired the 800 hectare Hohen Luckow estate near Rostock , which he had extensively renovated. The participants of the G8 summit in Heiligendamm 2007 were guests in the castle .

On the evening of January 5, 2009, Adolf Merckle was hit by a train near his house in the Blaubeur district of Weiler and killed ( rail suicide ). The police ruled out third-party fault, as a suicide note was found. In a statement, the Merckle family confirmed that Merckle had committed suicide due to the financial problems in its corporate empire : “The economic hardship of its companies caused by the financial crisis and the associated uncertainties of the last few weeks as well as the impotence of not being able to act have the passionate family business owner and he ended his life. "

Private

Merckle's wife Ruth , née Holland, comes from the Ulm cement manufacturer dynasty Schwenk / Schleicher . The trained physiotherapist worked in the company's management until 2002. The couple has three sons ( Ludwig , Philipp Daniel , Tobias ) and a daughter ( Jutta ) who are involved in the group of companies in a variety of ways. Merckle was an avowed Christian and belonged to the community of the Protestant town church of Blaubeuren. He was a member of the Ulm section of the German Alpine Club and enjoyed skiing and (extreme) mountaineering with his wife: In his younger years he conquered ten six-thousanders. He was also a member of the Tübingen student association A.V. Hedgehog .

According to the Forbes list , Merckle was the fifth richest German in spring 2008 with a fortune of around $ 12.8 billion . In 2006, with a total fortune of $ 11.5 billion, he even came third among the richest Germans. Key positions in his company are filled with people from his family. Despite the handover of the business to his son Ludwig Merckle in 1997, Adolf Merckle remained active in the background until his death.

In addition to many other social activities, he particularly supported the work of the German Foundation for Monument Protection and the German Society for Arteriosclerosis Research .

Corporate crisis

At the end of 2008, VEM Vermögensverwaltung, which held shares in ratiopharm and HeidelbergCement, got into a liquidity crisis . In some media, losses from option transactions with Volkswagen shares were initially blamed as the trigger. In fact, at the beginning of 2008, Adolf Merckle carried out two major capital increases at HeidelbergCement, which were used to finance the takeover of the British building materials manufacturer Hanson. The loans taken out for this purpose were secured with company shares. When stock market values ​​plummeted during the financial crisis, collateral also temporarily lost 75% of its value. Therefore, early loan repayments and additional collateral were required. Adolf Merckle used private and business assets for this purpose, but could not fully meet the requirements. A state guarantee was also not granted. His son Ludwig Merckle led the negotiations with the creditor banks, in which a bridging loan and the sale of ratiopharm and shares in HeidelbergCement were decided. The liquidity crisis of VEM Vermögensverwaltung could be overcome and the debts were repaid in full.

Awards

Adolf Merckle was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit, First Class , by the Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg, Günther Oettinger , in October 2005 . Merckle has been a holder of the Saxon Order of Merit since 2004 , and he was also awarded an honorary doctorate in medicine by the universities of Ulm and Tübingen and was their honorary senator .

He is the first recipient of the Rudolf Schönheimer Medal, the highest award of the German Society for Arteriosclerosis Research (DGAF).

Web links

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Susanne Preuss, Michael Roth: Merckle's idyll is in shards. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Archive.is, December 6, 2008, archived from the original on August 5, 2012 ; Retrieved October 2, 2013 .
  2. ^ History. Milestones in history. (No longer available online.) Ratiopharm, archived from the original on March 4, 2013 ; Retrieved April 1, 2015 .
  3. ↑ Financial Crisis: Billionaire Merckle commits suicide. In: Spiegel Online. January 6, 2009, accessed October 2, 2013 .
  4. ^ Leonie Seifert: Company empire Merckle's children and the burden of inheritance , FAZ from February 25, 2012:
  5. ↑ Sad farewell at the coffin of Adolf Merckle. In: The world. Retrieved January 12, 2009 .
  6. ↑ Luisa Kroll, Allison Fass: The World's Billionaires. In: Forbes.com. March 8, 2007, accessed July 18, 2010 .
  7. ↑ The cause of the crisis. In: Südwest Presse (online). December 31, 2009, archived from the original on September 24, 2015 ; Retrieved October 2, 2013 .
  8. ↑ Susanne Preuss, Michael Roth: "I have survived many stock market crashes". In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (online). December 10, 2008, accessed on October 2, 2013 (interview with Adolf Merckle).
  9. ^ Siegfried Hofmann: Banks struggle to find a solution for Merckle. In: Handelsblatt (online). November 19, 2008, accessed October 2, 2013 .
  10. ↑ Alexander Bögelein: Ludwig Merckle: Quickly pay off the debt. In: Südwest Presse (online). January 4, 2010, archived from the original on July 14, 2014 ; Retrieved October 2, 2013 .
  11. ^ Günther Oettinger: Ludwig Merckle - Der Retter. In: Handelsblatt (online). December 27, 2011, accessed December 27, 2011 .
  12. ↑ a b c Adolf Merckle. Obituary of the ratiopharm group . In: Schwäbische Zeitung from January 9, 2009
personal data
SURNAME Merckle, Adolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH March 18, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH January 5, 2009
Place of death Blaubeuren