KWS Saat

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
KWS SAAT SE & Co. KGaA

logo
legal form European company &
partnership limited by shares
ISIN DE0007074007
founding 1856
Seat Einbeck , GermanyGermanyGermany 
management
Number of employees 5,543
sales 1.113 billion euros (2018/19)
Branch Food and beverage
Website www.kws.com
As of June 30, 2019

The KWS Saat SE & Co. KGaA (proper spelling: KWS SAAT SE & Co. KGaA ), headquartered in Einbeck ( Lower Saxony ) is a 1856 in the village of Klein Wanzleben in Magdeburg based plant breeding - and biotechnology -Unternehmen. The KWS Group is the fourth largest seed manufacturer worldwide in terms of sales from agricultural crops. The core business includes the breeding and distribution of vegetable and grain seeds. KWS was active in over seventy countries in fiscal year 2018/19 with 5,543 employees.

The company has been listed on the Hamburg-Hanover stock exchange since 1954 and on the SDAX of the Frankfurt stock exchange since June 2006 . In addition, the shares are listed in the Lower Saxony share index Nisax20 .

history

Sugar factory in Klein Wanzleben in 1923

Sugar factory

The Klein Wanzleben sugar factory was founded in 1838 as a stock corporation by 19 farmers, craftsmen and innkeepers. In 1847, the German sugar beet grower Matthias Christian Rabbethge acquired a farm that also included a share in the company. Rabbethge gradually bought up almost all of the shares. The factory expanded and was able to process around 400 tons per day in 1888 and even 1,000 tons after 1904. From 1898 to 1955 it operated an extensive network of light railways , which also extended to the Dreileben - Drackenstedt station . After the fall of the Wall, the old factories were demolished in 1991.

Seed cultivation

The seed breeding company was founded in 1856 by Matthias Christian Rabbethge. In the same year, he and his future son Julius Giesecke a general partnership (OHG) named Rabbethge & Giesecke OHG. The company, which specializes in sugar beet seeds, was converted into a stock corporation as early as 1885 . In 1900, the first international branch was established in the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia to meet the demand from Russian sugar beet growers. In 1920 the range was expanded with the addition of grain, fodder beet and potato breeding.

After the Second World War, there was a new beginning in Einbeck, after the in-house seed library could be moved there. For this purpose, the most important employees and their families were brought to the British zone in Einbeck in a well-organized military operation from June 18 to 21, 1945, before the first Soviet occupation troops reached Klein Wanzleben on July 1, 1945. From 1951 the company was called Kleinwanzlebener Saatzucht, formerly Rabbethge & Giesecke AG, and expanded its breeding program to include corn, fodder, oil and protein plants. From 1961 subsidiaries and affiliated companies were established in Europe, North and South America, Asia and North Africa. In 1975 the name was changed again to KWS Kleinwanzlebener Saatzucht AG, previously Rabbethge & Giesecke, and on July 1, 1999 the company was renamed KWS SAAT AG . In spring 2015, KWS SAAT AG was renamed the European stock corporation KWS SAAT SE . At the beginning of July 2019, KWS changed its legal form to KWS SAAT SE & Co. KGaA.

Chronology of name changes

year Surname
1856 Rabbethge, Giesecke & Reinecke OHG
1864 Rabbethge & Giesecke OHG
1885 Kleinwanzleben sugar factory formerly Rabbethge & Giesecke AG
1937 Rabbethge & Giesecke AG
1946 Reception company Rabbethge & Giesecke Saatzucht GmbH
1951 Kleinwanzlebener Saatzucht formerly Rabbethge & Giesecke AG
1975 KWS Kleinwanzlebener Saatzucht AG formerly Rabbethge & Giesecke
1999 KWS SAAT AG (since July 1, 1999)
2015 KWS SAAT AG becomes KWS SAAT SE
2019 KWS SAAT SE to KWS SAAT SE & Co. KGaA
KWS SAAT SE's premises in Einbeck
KWS Saat SE premises in Einbeck

Buying and selling company shares

KWS France SARL in Roye
KWS France SARL in Roye

In the 1950s, KWS began to expand its business activities in western and southern European countries. At the same time, the company also intensified its activities on the American sugar beet market. In 1956 KWS acquired the Chilean company Segenta and the Turkish company Pan Tohum Islah ve Üretme KWS had been growing wheat and barley in its subsidiary Peragis since the 1920s. In 1964 Peragis was merged with Saatzucht Heine to form Heine-Peragis in Einbeck. In 1968 the company acquired the shares of Erben Krupp, Farbwerke Hoechst and part of the shares of Dresdner Bank in Lochow-Petkus GmbH . The company thus bought a good 54% of the total capital of the company, which specialized in grain breeding. The remaining shares in Dresdner Bank (27%) were taken over by the bank director Hans Rinn. As a representative of KWS, Carl-Ernst Büchting became the new chairman of the board of directors of Lochow-Petkus GmbH. In 1975 the company acquired the shares of the Rinn family in Lochow-Petkus GmbH and has held around 81% of the shares since then; the remaining 19% are owned by descendants of Ferdinand von Lochow. In 2008, Lochow-Petkus GmbH was renamed KWS Lochow and the subsidiaries in Poland and Great Britain were renamed KWS Lochow Polska and KWS UK.

In 1968, the company cooperated with the American plant breeder Northrup King Company to the company Betaseed to start. In 1972 a laboratory for cell biology was set up and in 1984 PLANTA Applied Plant Technology and Biotechnology GmbH was founded. This has been reintegrated into KWS Saat AG since July 2011. KWS Seeds Inc. was founded in 1978 to manage business operations in North America.

In the 1990s, the company acquired the Argentine plant breeding company Trebol Sur , which was renamed KWS Argentina in 1997 .

Hybrid rye variety KWS BINNTTO,
Hybrid rye variety KWS BINNTTO

In 2000 KWS and the French plant breeding company Limagrain founded the AgReliant joint venture to manage corn breeding in the USA. In 2003 KWS Türk was founded to improve the distribution of seeds in North Africa ( Morocco , Tunisia, Libya and Egypt) and in the Middle East (Iran, Iraq and Lebanon). In 2008 KWS and the Dutch company Van Rijn Group founded a 50/50 joint venture specializing in potato breeding. In April 2011 KWS acquired the remaining stake and set up the subsidiary KWS Potato. In September 2011, a joint venture with the Chinese company Kenfeng took place . Both companies are now focusing on the production and distribution of corn seeds in China. The Genective joint venture between KWS and the French seed company Vilmorin has existed since October 2011 . This involves the research and development of genetically modified (GM) maize traits.

In June 2012, the company acquired the Brazilian breeding companies Semília and Delta . The two companies were merged on July 1, 2012 to form KWS Brasil Pesquisa & Sementes LTDA . In July 2012, KWS also acquired a majority stake in the Riber company , which is located in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais . Riber – KWS Sementes , as the company's new name is now, will continue to concentrate on the Brazilian market and primarily offer genetically modified maize and soy varieties. On July 1, 2019, KWS entered the vegetable seeds business with the acquisition of the Dutch company Pop Vriend Seeds .

Current products

The main focus of sales is on seeds for sugar beet , grain, maize and rapeseed. In addition to these focal points, summer rape , sunflowers , sorghum , various catch crops and vegetables are on offer.

Shareholders

Company logo on the Edesheim forest
proportion of Shareholders
54.4% Families Büchting / Arend Oetker / Giesecke
15.4% Tessner Beteiligungs GmbH
30.2% Free float

Status: August 2020

research

The company invests an average of 18.5% of sales annually in research and development in order to develop new seed varieties that are adapted to the requirements of agriculture, climatic conditions and geological conditions. KWS uses various breeding methods such as crossing and selection, line and hybrid breeding, phenotyping markers, genetic engineering and genome editing.

criticism

The company has come under strong public criticism for its activities in the field of green genetic engineering . In 1993 it carried out the first releases with genetically modified sugar beets. These releases were among the first releases of genetic engineering plants in Germany and were accompanied by massive protests.

Web links

Commons : KWS Saat AG  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. a b c Annual Report 2018/19. (pdf) In: kws.com. Retrieved November 22, 2019 .
  2. a b Reinhard Richter: Feldbahnen in the service of agriculture. Verlag Bernd Neddermeyer, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-933254-65-5 , pp. 79-99.
  3. Detlef Diestel: The Klein Wanzleben sugar factory from its foundation until 1917/18 . In: Agriculture and Capitalism . Vol. 1, part 2, Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1978, p. 63.
  4. a b c Betina Meißner: Success can be sown - 150 years of KWS . Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2007. P. 90.
  5. KWS SAAT SE - Annual General Meeting 2015. In: deutscher-aktien-informations-dienst.de. November 9, 2015, accessed November 22, 2019 .
  6. KWS changes its legal form - Press Corner - Press - Company - KWS SAAT SE & Co. KGaA. Retrieved July 5, 2019 .
  7. Betina Meißner: You can sow success - 150 years of KWS . Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2007. P. 90 f.
  8. ^ Jost von Lochow, Joachim Köchling and Reinhard von Broock: Die Lochow-Petkus plant breeding . Lectures for Plant Breeding, Book 65, Society for Plant Breeding e. V., 2004. p. 27.
  9. KWS website ( Memento of the original dated July 6, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed April 3, 2012.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kws-lochow.de
  10. ^ Institute for Plant Breeding and PLANTA merged. In: www.topagrar.com. July 4, 2011, accessed November 22, 2019 .
  11. "Van Rijn-KWS BV" becomes "KWS POTATO BV" In: www.topagrar.com. Retrieved November 22, 2019 .
  12. KWS signs joint venture agreement with Kenfeng. In: www.topagrar.com. October 4, 2018, accessed November 22, 2019 .
  13. Genective - technology for plants - introduction. Retrieved February 20, 2018 .
  14. KWS SAAT AG: KWS and Vilmorin agree to collaborate on the development of genetically improved traits for maize. October 25, 2011, accessed July 5, 2019 .
  15. History - Company - KWS SAAT SE & Co. KGaA. In: www.kws.com. Retrieved November 22, 2019 .
  16. DGAP-News: KWS SAAT SE: KWS starts business with vegetable seeds and acquires Pop Vriend Seeds. In: www.finanznachrichten.de. June 19, 2019, accessed November 22, 2019 .
  17. Products - partner of farmers since 1856 - KWS SAAT SE & Co. KGaA. In: www.kws.com. Retrieved November 22, 2019 .
  18. IR page on KWS website , accessed on August 24, 2020
  19. Innovation - goals, breeding methods, projects - KWS SAAT SE & Co. KGaA. In: www.kws.com. Retrieved November 22, 2019 .
  20. Schuchert, Wolfgang: Plant breeding research in the focus of a critical public. The public disputes over the first field trials with genetically modified plants in Germany. 1997, ISBN 3-89573-067-X .

bibliography

  • Detlef Diestel: The Klein Wanzleben sugar factory from its foundation until 1917/18. In: Agriculture and Capitalism . Vol. 1, part 2, Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1978. pp. 63-90.
  • Betina Meißner: You can sow success - 150 years of KWS. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-8353-0161-0 , p. 90 f.