Dieter Bock

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Hans Dieter Bock (born March 3, 1939 in Dessau ; † May 12, 2010 in Hamburg ) was a German lawyer who hit the headlines in the 1990s as a real estate and stock speculator through his participation in the London conglomerate Lonrho , which he did earned the reputation of an "early grasshopper ". Later he was known as a real estate entrepreneur and art sponsor as well as co-owner of the Hamburg Hotel Atlantic and various other German luxury hotels.

On the list of the richest Germans in 2009, he was number 153. Together with Erwin Conradi , he was a partner in Octavian Hotel Holding GmbH (part of Octavian King Holdings in Rotterdam ), which operates several Kempinski hotels in Germany (including the Hotel Bristol in Berlin ) belong.

Life

Bock was the son of a director of the AGFA film factory in Wolfen . The family fled to Weinheim (West Germany) in 1953 , where Bock grew up. He studied law at the Philipps University of Marburg , where he became a member of the Corps Hasso-Nassovia in 1960 . In 1973, Bock founded a tax consulting company and also began to invest in real estate and investments. Instead of renting business premises, he bought an old building in Schwabing in 1974 against payment of an annuity, which the Communards Uschi Obermaier and Rainer Langhans had just vacated. He converted the building into a commercial building, where he initially housed his company Bilanz und Steuer AG (bistag), but sold it a few years later at a high profit. The bistag exists to this day, based in Frankfurt am Main and a branch office in Halle (Saale).

In the following years Bock switched to real estate trading and stock speculation and expanded its activities to include Germany and the United States and South Africa. In 1986 he bundled his companies in the real estate holding Advanta . In 1988 he acquired ten percent of the shares in the construction company Philipp Holzmann , a little later he bought into Dywidag and Tilbury in order to sell all holdings a short time later at a high profit. He then joined the Canadian real estate holding Trizec Hahn, one of the largest North American real estate companies, as a partner.

In the last few decades, Bock has concentrated on the hotel sector. Through his holding company, he was a long-term shareholder in the Hamburg Hotel Atlantic, which was revoked its five-star categorization in 2008, as well as membership of the Leading Hotels of the World association .

Bock has owned the South African soccer team Moroka Swallow for the past few years.

Bock was married, had four children and lived in seclusion in London and Darmstadt . He was rarely photographed, rarely gave interviews and was therefore often compared to the ALDI brothers in the rainbow press. His modest appearance contributed to Bock's special reputation: suits from C&A , plastic bags instead of briefcases, favorite meal of pasta (but with which he drank Château Pétrus wines).

The Lonrho feud

At the end of 1992, through the mediation of the Swedish banker Christian Norgren , Bock bought £ 50 million , which he financed mainly through the BfG-Bank , at Lonrho , with which he acquired a company share of 18.8 percent.

Lonrho (now Lonmin ), a Rhodesian mining company founded in the early 20th century , developed into a global conglomerate after Tiny Rowland joined the company in 1961. In addition to mines and farms , he also acquired publishers (e.g. The Observer ) and hotels. In 1985 he was defeated by the Egyptian entrepreneur and billionaire Mohamed Al-Fayed in a spectacular dispute over the takeover of the long-established London department store Harrods . In full-page newspaper advertisements, Tiny Rowland welcomed Bock to the financially troubled company as an important investor and future co-director, who now held the same stake as him. Bock settled in London, where he bought Cheapside House as his residence.

But the cooperation and “male friendship” quickly ended in a power struggle. In 1994/95, Bock ensured that Lonrho board member Rowland was kicked out. In 1996 Bock sold his shares to the Anglo American mining company for around double his own investment. This prompted Rowland to swear that he would "persecute Bock to the end of his days". Nevertheless, he denied having hired private detectives to prove that Bock was entangled in the Stasi company network.

Munich Praterinsel

In 1984 Bock bought the old factory building of the Anton Riemerschmid company on Munich's Praterinsel , but failed with his plan to build a hotel on the island. A city council resolution stipulated that the areas could in principle be used commercially, but that a large part had to be available for cultural purposes. A few artists and galleries settled there, who brought international art flair to the Isar in the following years with exhibitions by Keith Haring , David Byrne or Daniel Spörri .

But in 2006 Bock gave notice to all tenants because of the upcoming renovation and with the promise that the artists could return to their traditional premises after the construction work. At the same time, he sold all properties on the Praterinsel to a merger of Danish and Dutch pension funds, on whose behalf the Augsburg property management company Patrizia AG took over management in 2007. The premises remained empty until his death and renovation work was not started.

Kempinski

There were legal disputes with the hotel group Kempinski for years. In 1992, Bock joined the group and, together with his company Advanta, bought the hotel chain's Berlin headquarters, the five-star Hotel Bristol on Kurfürstendamm , in order to lease it back to the group. As a major partner in Kempinski AG, he managed to secure a rental agreement with a term of 20 years and an annual rent of 13 million marks - a good deal with a purchase price of 235 million marks.

When the hotel no longer worked profitably due to the high lease costs and ran into financial difficulties, Kempinski AG sued Bock for damages. Bock then sold his 53 percent stake in the group to the Thai hotel group Dusit Thani , terminated the lease without notice in December 1997 and brought an eviction action.

Bock and Olga Collection and Dieter Bock Foundation

In the founding phase from 1989 to 1995, Bock made considerable sums of money available to the Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt am Main in order to offset the house's narrow purchase budget. The museum director Jean-Christophe Ammann bought numerous works or groups of works by a total of 29 artists, including Bruce Nauman's object Hanging Heads , paintings by Luc Tuymans and knitted pictures by Rosemarie Trockel . In the early years they supplemented the museum collection as works “Acquired with private funds as permanent loan for the Museum of Modern Art”. After Ammann's end of service in 2001, the loans went to the Olga and Dieter Bock Foundation , which in turn had parts of them auctioned off in a London auction house in 2005. Luc Tuymans obtained an injunction with the argument that he had explicitly sold his works to a museum at the time.

Groups of works by Rosemarie Trockel, Andreas Slominski , Reiner Ruthenbeck , Bernhard Härtter and Martin Honert , which were purchased with Bock's help, could be acquired by the City of Frankfurt am Main; 22 works by Thomas Bayrle were still loaned to the museum.

Awards

In 1999, together with Hermann Graf von Pückler, as former members of the BTU board of trustees in the music hall of Branitz Castle , Bock was made an honorary senator from the Brandenburg Technical University in Cottbus . He has been a member of the Board of Trustees since it was founded in 1996. The architect Peter Eisenman gave the keynote address.

Bolus death

Dieter Bock died of bolus death on May 12, 2010 at the age of 71 . Bock had had food delivered to his suite in the Atlantic after midnight and then evidently choked on a piece of meat. According to press reports, rescue workers called for help tried in vain to reanimate Bock. According to the examining doctors, there was no reason for an autopsy. Third-party debt was excluded.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1996, 68 , 1380
  2. ↑ a b Bilanz und Steuer AG website
  3. ↑ A quiet man who can be tough . In: Berliner Zeitung , September 17, 1998
  4. ↑ a b Dieter Bock obituary obituary in: The Guardian of June 9, 2010
  5. ↑ Rowland and another v Bock and another reasoning for the judgment Rowland vs Bock et al.
  6. ↑ a b Dieter Bock . Obituary in: The Daily Telegraph , May 30, 2010
  7. ↑ Lisa Meyer: Praterinsel. Everything sleeps, lonely wakes. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , February 8, 2010
  8. ↑ a b Silent funeral . In: Der Spiegel . No. 14 , 2007 ( online ).
  9. ↑ Betrayed. Frankfurt without the Bock Collection on FAZ.net , July 7, 2005
  10. ↑ Permanent loans are not forever . In: Die Welt , July 20, 2005
  11. ↑ BTU awards honorary senatorship to Dieter Bock and Hermann Graf von Pückler .
personal data
SURNAME Bock, Dieter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bock, Hans Dieter (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German entrepreneur and hotelier
DATE OF BIRTH March 3, 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH Dessau
DATE OF DEATH May 12, 2010
Place of death Hamburg