Josef March (entrepreneur)

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Josef March (born July 26, 1925 , † April 12, 1988 in Rosenheim ) was a Bavarian entrepreneur who had built up a beverage and food company of the same name from Rosenheim.

Business development and heyday

Josef März attended high school in Rosenheim and later studied law. As early as 1948 he joined the dairy business, the March Brothers dairy , owned by his father Willi senior. The beginnings consisted of a small dairy with an attached dairy shop. Then Josef and his brothers Andreas and Willi junior expanded the business and started trading in dairy products . In the 1960s, business activities were expanded with the takeover of the Rosenheim slaughterhouse. With the establishment of Marox GmbH the entry into the meat processing took place. Later this included further production facilities in Munich and Pfaffenhofen as well as abroad in France , Greece and Togo . Intensive business relationships were established in Africa through the cattle trade . At the beginning of the 1970s, Marox Afrique was founded in Togo and a brewery was taken over there in 1974 . This was the beginning of a growing beer brewing business. In the 1980s, the majority of the breweries EKU , Henninger , Bavaria-St Pauli and Brau AG were acquired. As a result, the group grew to become the second largest brewery group in Germany. In the 1970s and increasingly in the 1980s, the cattle trade with the GDR was expanded. This led to close contact between March and the head of the GDR authority for commercial coordination , Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski .

Political Relations

Josef März and Franz Josef Strauss , who also came from a butcher family, had known each other since the 1960s. A friendship developed between the two. March was temporarily deputy chairman of the economic advisory council of the CSU as well as district treasurer of Upper Bavaria of the party. Together with Strauss, he maintained good contacts with the Togolese President Etienne Eyadéma , a former general who came to power through a coup in 1967 and who Amnesty International has accused of violating human rights .

Josef März put Strauss and Schalck-Golodkowski in contact. This relationship was the basis for Strauss's 1983 granting of two billion loans by a West German bank consortium to the GDR. March acted as a middleman, host and courier in the contacts between Munich and East Berlin . Gut Spöck near Rosenheim, the March family's guest house, served as a discreet meeting point. Against this background, the meat imports of the Marox group of companies from the GDR developed very successfully, which were also very high-margin for March.

Josef März was also a sponsor of the Starbulls Rosenheim ice hockey club , this commitment contributed significantly to three titles.

Death and decline of the group

In 1988 Josef March died. His two brothers Andreas and Willi took over the management of the company. They brought the group to the stock exchange in 1991 under the name Gebr. März AG . The company's expansion was continued with the acquisition of a third stake in the main competitor Moksel as well as further acquisitions in the food sector (including Heinrichsthaler Milchwerke ). In 1992 an annual turnover of DM 2.14 billion was achieved, the group had around 80 subsidiaries and more than 6,000 employees were employed. However, the growth was largely financed by outside capital , and the lucrative GDR business also collapsed after reunification . The company fell into the red for a long time. At the insistence of the creditors, the family had to withdraw from the management in order to enable a reorganization. Finally, on March 11, 1996, a settlement was sought for insolvency , which was followed by bankruptcy due to lack of assets . The company was completely broken up in the course of the restructuring efforts and then as a result of the bankruptcy.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c City history - Josef March . In: Rosenheim City Archives . Retrieved October 31, 2015.
  2. ^ A b c Wolfgang Ehrensberger: Gebr. March AG: Rise and fall of a Bavarian empire . In: The world . December 11, 1995. Retrieved October 31, 2015.
  3. ↑ a b Black godchild . In: Der Spiegel . March 7, 1977. Retrieved October 31, 2015.
  4. ↑ Dirk Hebermann: Billion Loans - Help for the GDR . In: Handelsblatt . July 28, 2006. Retrieved October 31, 2015.
  5. ↑ Strictly confidential connection . In: Der Spiegel . August 19, 1991. Retrieved October 31, 2015.
  6. ↑ If it fits, we reach for - the fabulous rise of the Bavarian Schalck partner company in March to a food company . In: Der Spiegel . November 4, 1991. Retrieved October 31, 2015.
  7. ↑ http://www.eishockey-in-rosenheim.de/SBR/Der_SBR.htm, accessed on August 20, 2018
  8. ↑ Klaus Wittmann: An empire crumbles . In: Zeit Online . January 19, 1996. Retrieved October 31, 2015.
  9. ↑ March has to file for bankruptcy . In: Berliner Zeitung . April 11, 1996. Retrieved October 31, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME March, Josef
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German meat entrepreneur, founder of Marox
DATE OF BIRTH July 26, 1925
DATE OF DEATH April 12, 1988
Place of death Rosenheim