Eckhard Cordes

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Cordes at the 2011 World Economic Forum

Eckhard Cordes (born November 25, 1950 in Neumünster ) is a German manager and was CEO of the Metro AG retail group from November 2007 to December 2011 . He has been Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the construction company Bilfinger SE since November 11, 2014 .

family

Cordes was born the son of a leather merchant. He is married to a former employee. Cordes is the father of four sons, two of them from their first marriage.

DaimlerChrysler

After studying business administration from 1969 to 1974 at the University of Hamburg and receiving his doctorate, he joined what was then Daimler-Benz AG in 1976 . There he held various operational and strategic management positions in Germany and abroad before he was appointed to the board of the group holding company in 1996.

When Daimler-Benz merged with Chrysler in 1998, he was a member of the small preparatory group that later became known as the “Schrempps Küchenkabinett” (“kitchen cabinet”). It included Schrempp's office manager and today's wife Lydia Deininger, the then communications director Hartmut Schick, the then strategic director Rüdiger Grube , Eckhard Cordes as strategic director and the investment banker Alexander Dibelius from Goldman Sachs . Likewise, the DaimlerChrysler stake with 33.4 percent in Mitsubishi Motors Corporation (MMC) was prepared by Cordes and Dibelius in 2000. In April 2004, the Mitsubishi shares were sold again, the participation had proven to be a bad investment. In 2007, Daimler and Chrysler separated after losses of several tens of billions of dollars.

From October 1, 2004 to August 31, 2005, he succeeded Jürgen Hubbert as a member of the Board of Management (Passenger Car Division) at DaimlerChrysler AG. Cordes was responsible for the Mercedes Car Group . He was head of Mercedes-Benz , Maybach and smart and was also responsible for motorsport activities with the in-house tuner AMG and McLaren . After Jürgen Schrempp announced his resignation at the end of the year as CEO of the stock corporation on July 28, 2005 and at the same time Dieter Zetsche (board member Chrysler Corporation) had been introduced as his successor, Cordes asked the Supervisory Board to terminate his contract immediately. Up to this point it looked as if Cordes would succeed Jürgen Schrempp and take over the management of DaimlerChrysler. Conversely, in this case Dieter Zetsche would also have left the company, because since Cordes had criticized Zetsche's work, the two managers have avoided each other.

Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH

From January 2006 to December 31, 2009, Eckhard Cordes was CEO of the family company Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH and replaced Theo Siegert , who had been in this position since May 2005 . The Haniel family had become dissatisfied with the management of Cordes and assigned their failures to his overload as CEO of Metro and as managing director of Franz Haniel GmbH . When he took office as CEO of Metro in September 2007, criticism of his double burden was expressed and warnings of possible business losses. In September 2009, the Haniel Supervisory Board elected Jürgen Kluge as the new CEO, who took over from Cordes on January 1, 2010.

Metro AG

Since November 1, 2007, Eckhard Cordes was CEO of the Metro AG retail group . The announcement of the group took place on September 20, 2007. Thanks to the support of the Haniel and Schmidt-Ruthenbeck families as the new Metro majority shareholders, he was able to replace CEO Hans-Joachim Körber in September 2007 . Instead of expansion as with Körber, he is now focusing on high profitability. The average profitable metro chains Real and Kaufhof no longer met its high return requirements: "Our goal is growth rates that are well above the market - and that for years to come."

On November 18, 2011, Metro AG announced in a press release that Eckhard Cordes would resign from his position as CEO on December 31, 2011 and leave the group. The previous CFO, Olaf Koch, became his successor as CEO.

In 2010 Cordes took part in the annual meeting of the Trilateral Commission .

Merger plans Kaufhof / Karstadt

Before the Karstadt bankruptcy

Since November 2007, Cordes insisted, in contrast to Körber, on a merger of the then Metro company Kaufhof with the department store chain Karstadt . He found significant support for this idea from his friend, neighbor and best man, the investment banker Alexander Dibelius , who has been working for Goldman Sachs since 2004 for an exceptionally extensive advisory mandate for KarstadtQuelle , later Arcandor and now Karstadt. In order to give even more emphasis to his merger project, he takes the view that Germany suffers from an “oversupply of department stores”. He also presented this to leading politicians such as Guttenberg , Merkel and Steinmeier . After the liquidation of the department store competitor Hertie in 2009, he continued to adhere to this thesis that “Germany” still has a “need for consolidation”. Critics like the banker Friedrich Carl Janssen denied the objectivity of Cordes, he was not looking for an industry solution, but was pursuing his own corporate interests. The real estate expert Ruth Vierbuchen warned against a merger, as this would impose economic and business costs on all other economic and business costs due to the subsequent branch closings and would only benefit Kaufhof. In Great Britain and France there are several department store chains that operate profitably.

During the Karstadt bankruptcy

Immediately before Karstadt went bankrupt , Cordes succeeded in preventing the threatened state aid for the ailing company. In the insolvency proceedings, Cordes initially tried to badmouth Karstadt and thus prevent the liquidator from continuing operations, because his goal had to be the liquidation of Karstadt, because Kaufhof was only able to manage a takeover of around 50 Karstadt stores and threw them into the debate. Metro did not participate in the official bidding competition for Karstadt because the insolvency administrator only offered Karstadt as a whole. At the same time, Cordes, who had been looking for an investor for Kaufhof for a long time, tried to find investors who might be interested in the simultaneous takeover of Kaufhof and Karstadt, but was unsuccessful. When the permanent preservation of Karstadt and the takeover by the investor Nicolas Berggruen became apparent and Kaufhof had in the meantime proven to be unsaleable in several attempts, Cordes commented: “At some point there will be a merger, whenever and under whatever circumstances . "

After the Karstadt bankruptcy

At the end of the process initiated by Cordes' subjective point of view with the Karstadt insolvency, Metro was not the hoped-for "crisis profiteer". The strategy pursued by the insolvency administrator Klaus Hubert Görg and Hans-Gerd Jauch in all negotiations of maintaining and selling Karstadt as a whole was successful. At the end of the process, Cordes was faced with a competitor Karstadt with Kaufhof, who is stronger than before the insolvency: Thanks to the successful insolvency plan procedure, debt was completely eliminated, without its own real estate, for which the Highstreet landlord consortium under the leadership of Dibelius also had to reduce rents considerably, directed by the billionaire Nicolas Berggruen .

Functions

Eckhard Cordes is co-founder of the private equity company Emeram Capital Partners in Munich. He is also a partner in the Swedish financial investor Cevian Capital . On November 11, 2014, he was elected Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the construction group Bilfinger SE .

Cordes is a member of the supervisory bodies of the following companies:

He also held positions in the following companies:

  • Air Berlin PLC, Non-Executive Director on the Board of Directors
  • Aktiebolaget SKF , Member of the Board of Directors (2006–2008)
  • Celesio AG, Chairman of the Supervisory Board until December 31, 2009
  • Deutsche Bahn AG, Supervisory Board from July 1, 2006
  • Rheinmetall AG
  • TAKKT AG until December 31, 2009

Bullying processes at DaimlerChrysler

In 2006, the Baden-Württemberg State Labor Court (LAG) confirmed a first instance judgment of the Stuttgart Labor Court against DaimlerChrysler after Cordes was responsible for the bullying of an employee from November 2000 to mid-2004.

The LAG sentenced DaimlerChrysler to pay compensation for pain and suffering in the amount of 25,000 euros. In its judgment, the LAG took into account the victim's personal complaint against Cordes (Az. 2Ca 306/06), in which Cordes is accused of having instigated the bullying of his victim during his time at DaimlerChrysler and of having their personal rights targeted, serious and has culpably injured.

Sociopolitical engagement

In August 2010, Cordes positioned himself as one of 40 signatories of the Energy Policy Appeal , a lobbying initiative of the four large electricity companies to promote the extension of the service life of German nuclear power plants.

In addition, until 2015 he was chairman of the Eastern Committee of German Business and a member of the steering committee of the German-Russian St. Petersburg Dialogue .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heads of the economy: Eckhard Cordes. ( Memento from March 2, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) In: WirtschaftsWoche
  2. ^ Bill Vlasic, Bradley A. Stertz: Taken for a Ride. How the DaimlerChrysler "marriage of equals" crumbled. In: Businessweek . June 5, 2000 (excerpt).
  3. ↑ da./eig: Farewell helps the share price. In: The world . March 10, 2006.
  4. ↑ Marco Dalan: Daimler-Chrysler will join Mitsubishi next week. In: The world. March 24, 2000.
  5. ↑ DaimlerChrysler drops Mitsubishi. In: Deutsche Welle , May 1, 2004.
  6. ^ Sören Jensen, Thomas Werres: Haniel. CEO Cordes should be relieved - but continue to lead Metro AG . In: manager magazin , 2009, No. 4., ISSN  0047-5726
  7. ↑ Georg Meck: The double life of Eckhard Cordes . In: FAZ , November 8, 2007.
  8. ↑ haniel.de ( Memento from August 2, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) haniel.de, September 11, 2009.
  9. ↑ Georg Winters: Cordes is his successor: Metro boss Körber has to go. In: Rheinische Post , September 20, 2007.
  10. ↑ a b Dietmar Hawranek, Armin Mahler: Profit instead of growth . In: Der Spiegel . No. 39 , 2007 ( online ).
  11. ↑ Outlook and goals .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. haniel.de; Retrieved August 18, 2010.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.haniel.de  
  12. ↑ Press releases. Metro AG, accessed on July 13, 2017 .
  13. ^ Stefan Weber: Possible merger of Kaufhof and Karstadt. “There is no way around merging.” In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , November 2, 2007.
  14. ^ Brigitte Koch: War of the Roses for Karstadt. In: FAZ , August 18, 2010.
  15. ↑ AP / Reuters / ben: Kaufhof and Karstadt: Arcandor boss wants to talk to Metro. ( Memento from August 22, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) In: stern , May 19, 2009.
  16. ^ Sven Clausen: Agenda: Goldfinger. ( Memento from August 2, 2012 in the archive.today web archive ) In: Financial Times Deutschland, July 12, 2007.
  17. ↑ Oliver Santen: BILD interview with Metro boss. What will happen to Karstadt now, Mr. Cordes? In: Bild , December 13, 2009:
    Cordes: “Germany has an oversupply of department stores.” Sic
  18. ↑ ssu / ler / AP / dpa / Reuters: Guttenberg favors Karstadt-Kaufhof merger. In: Spiegel online, June 4, 2009.
  19. ↑ Metro rescue plan for Karstadt costs 5,000 positions. In: Die Welt, June 4, 2009.
  20. ↑ Hagen Seidel: "The market is not big enough for two." In: Die Welt , August 8, 2010, interview with Cordes.
  21. ^ Henryk Hielscher: The tactical games of Eick and Cordes. In: WirtschaftsWoche , May 25, 2009.
  22. ↑ Ruth Vierbuchen: The Kaufhof in particular would benefit from a Deutsche Warenhaus AG - high costs for all other parties involved. ( Memento from September 4, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) In: Handelsimmobilien Report, September 1, 2010.
  23. ^ Henryk Hielscher: The tactical games of Eick and Cordes. In: Wirtschaftswoche . May 25, 2009. Retrieved January 22, 2011 .
  24. ↑ Metro boss gives Karstadt no chance. In: Focus . December 14, 2009, accessed January 22, 2011 .
  25. ↑ Metro is considering taking over Karstadt. In: Spiegel Online . June 4, 2009, accessed January 22, 2011 .
  26. ↑ Probably not a Karstadt takeover - Metro sees itself well prepared. In: n-tv . January 16, 2010, accessed January 22, 2011 .
  27. ^ Hagen Seidel: Talks with investors: New opportunity for the merger of Karstadt and Kaufhof. In: Welt Online . March 21, 2010, accessed January 22, 2011 .
  28. ↑ m.ftd.de ( Memento from December 2, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
  29. ↑ Hagen Seidel: Metro boss Cordes still wants Karstadt . In: Die Welt , August 9, 2010.
  30. ↑ Metro intervenes in sales poker: The competitor could be the crisis profiteer: If the Karstadt sale fails, Metro wants to submit an offer to take over half of the branches. In: Spiegel Online . June 7, 2010, accessed January 22, 2011 .
  31. ↑ Way paved for rent reduction at Karstadt. wirtschaft-regional.de, September 3, 2010, accessed on January 22, 2011 .
  32. ↑ Dr. Eckhard Cordes new Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Bilfinger SE. Bilfinger SE, archived from the original on October 3, 2017 ; accessed on July 13, 2017 .
  33. ^ Board of Directors - Eastern Committee of the German Economy. Retrieved July 13, 2017 .
  34. ↑ Report of the DB Supervisory Board for an IPO . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International , Issue 8–9 / 2006, p. 378.
  35. ^ Mobbing verdict against DaimlerChrysler . In: The world
  36. ↑ Eckhard Cordes hands over to Büchele. In: n-tv.de. Retrieved July 13, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Cordes, Eckhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German manager
DATE OF BIRTH November 25, 1950
PLACE OF BIRTH Neumunster