Klaus Zumwinkel

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Klaus Zumwinkel (2007)

Klaus Zumwinkel (born December 15, 1943 in Rheinberg ) is a German manager . He is a management consultant and volunteers as a board member of the Deutsche Post Foundation as well as the president of the research institutes IZA Institute of Labor Economics ( Institute for the Future of Work ), briq Institute on Behavior & Inequality and SUN Institute Environment & Sustainability. Zumwinkel was managing director of Deutsche Bundespost from 1990 to the end of 1994 and chairman of the board of Deutsche Post AG from 1995 to 2008 . In 2009, he was charged with tax evasion to the parole suspended prison sentence of two years and a probation shall be paid after which a cash prize of one million euros, condemned.

Life

Origin and education

Klaus Zumwinkel was born in Rheinberg (then Moers district , now Wesel district , North Rhine-Westphalia ) on the Lower Rhine as the second son of an entrepreneurial family and grew up in Kamp-Lintfort . It was there that his father laid the foundation for the family business. As an early member of the NSDAP, he was able to buy a clothing store from the Jewish owners for a very small sum due to the ordinance on the use of Jewish assets . This is how Zumwinkel's family came to Kamp-Lintfort. In the neighboring town of Moers , Klaus Zumwinkel passed his Abitur at the Adolfinum grammar school and then studied business administration at the Westphalian Wilhelms University of Münster . After his diploma (1969) he attended the Wharton School of the US University of Pennsylvania from 1970 . In 1971 he left the university as a Master of Science (M.Sc.) and returned to Germany. In 1973 he was awarded a doctorate in Münster with an investigation into "planning and testing operational information trading". rer. pole. PhD .

Zumwinkel property on Lake Garda, Castello di Tenno

He is married and has two children. His professional focus today is in London, where he works as an investor. In his private life he lives in London and at Castello di Tenno on Lake Garda in Italy.

job and career

After the death of his father, Zumwinkel and his older brother Hartwig (1935-2010) took over the management of their parents' trading company. This was sold to Rewe in 1971 and at that time comprised ten department stores and fifty discount stores. He made a substantial fortune before he even started working as an employee.

From 1974 to 1984 he worked at McKinsey , from 1979 as a partner and member of the German management, most recently since 1984 as a senior partner and member of the global management. In 1985 he left the company and took over as CEO of the major mail order company Quelle , where he had been employed as a consultant since 1984.

Five years later, shortly after the first postal reform, he was appointed managing director of the Deutsche Bundespost. From the foundation of the stock corporation in 1995, until his resignation in 2008, he was also its chairman and thus most recently the longest-serving chairman of a DAX company, which was not exonerated for the 2008 financial year. During his tenure, the logistics companies Global Mail, Danzas and Herald International Mailings were acquired. Under Zumwinkel, Deutsche Post went public in November 2000 and Postbank went public in 2004. One of his greatest successes and at the same time the largest foreign logistics contract for Deutsche Post was a ten-year logistics contract with the British National Health Service , which was completed in September 2006. Zumwinkel had planned his planned resignation from the post of head of post for the end of 2008.

Zumwinkel was also Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Telekom ; he also sat on the supervisory boards of Allianz , Deutsche Lufthansa and Morgan Stanley . Until December 31, 2008 he was a member of the Arcandor Supervisory Board (formerly KarstadtQuelle) . He sat on the supervisory board of the largest and most important privatized German state-owned companies - whether postal service, Postbank, Telekom or Lufthansa. This “excess of power” was recently criticized by politicians. In addition to these positions, Zumwinkel was also a member of the board of trustees of the non-profit Bertelsmann Foundation (2001–2004).

In 2000 Zumwinkel was awarded a Bambi . In 2001 he received the Great Federal Cross of Merit . From 2002 Zumwinkel regularly took part in the Bilderberg conferences . In the same year Zumwinkel was awarded the title “ Sprachpanscher of the year ” by the German Language Association for the introduction of Anglicisms such as “Global Mail”, “ Stampit ” or “ Freeway ”. In 2003 he was voted " Manager of the Year 2003" by the German Manager Magazin . In 2007 he received the Order of Merit of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia .

In April 2009, Zumwinkel returned the Grand Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, which he had received in 2001 , and in May 2009 also his North Rhine-Westphalia Order of Merit.

Criminal proceedings

After a search of his private house in Cologne on the morning of February 14, 2008, investigations by the Bochum public prosecutor's office against Zumwinkel became public. At the same time, the manager's office in the corporate headquarters in the Post Tower in Bonn was searched . He was charged with tax evasion amounting to one million euros .

The investigations were in connection with the Liechtenstein tax affair and with financial investments in a special foundation under Liechtenstein law via the LGT Bank . Since Zumwinkel was cooperative and deposited an amount of four million euros as security, an existing arrest warrant against him was suspended.

Klaus Zumwinkel to the right of Frank Appel (2007)

After Zumwinkel had offered to resign as head of post on February 15, the Post's Supervisory Board unanimously appointed Frank Appel as his successor on February 18, with immediate effect . Zumwinkel's contract originally ran until November 2008. On the same day, he resigned as chairman of the supervisory boards of Deutsche Telekom and Postbank. The searches at Zumwinkel are considered the first official action in a comprehensive investigation into the largest tax affair in Germany to date .

On January 26th, 2009, Klaus Zumwinkel was sentenced to a suspended prison sentence of two years for tax evasion by the 12th major criminal chamber of the Bochum Regional Court . At the same time, the court issued a suspended sentence , according to which a sum of money in the amount of one million euros must be paid. Of this, 800,000 euros go to the state treasury and 200,000 euros to non-profit organizations . Zumwinkel had confessed to having evaded taxes totaling almost 970,000 euros through a foundation in Liechtenstein. According to the indictment, Zumwinkel is said to have evaded taxes amounting to 1.2 million euros between 2001 and 2007. With regard to 2001, however, the court did not allow the prosecution to take part in the main hearing because the act was statute-barred and the statute of limitations was not interrupted in time (an investigating judge had issued decisions 12 hours too late).

Gisela Friedrichsen commented on the verdict that although the sentence was within the normal range, the trial still seemed like a game: Wealthy accused could make a verdict according to their taste. Even judges of the Federal Court of Justice are said to have held a three-year prison sentence without parole for Zumwinkel to be “justifiable”. Zumwinkel announced that he would be leaving Germany to move to the Castello di Tenno in Italy .

In the context of the telecommunications spying affair , the Bonn public prosecutor's office had also initiated investigations against Klaus Zumwinkel. He was suspected of having ordered phone data spying for more than a year. Because of Zumwinkel's role in the surveillance affair, which had not yet been fully clarified, the Telekom general meeting on April 30, 2009 postponed the decision on his discharge to the next 2010 general meeting. The investigations were discontinued in June 2010 due to a lack of suspicion. On February 1, 2011, Telekom announced that both Zumwinkel and the former CEO Kai-Uwe Ricke had reached a settlement, which is subject to the approval of the shareholders. The content of the settlement is "to compensate for a considerable part of the damage suffered by Deutsche Telekom by making payments of the same amount and not claiming the same, quite substantial partial amount of these payments from the manager insurance." According to a consultant from Zumwinkel, it should are a sum of 250,000 euros, plus the assumption of legal fees in the amount of 300,000 euros.

Pension rights and bonuses

At the beginning of March 2009 it became known that Klaus Zumwinkel had had his pension entitlements of 20 million euros paid out as capital by Deutsche Post as part of an option. In addition, according to the annual report of Deutsche Post, he received total remuneration totaling 714,045 euros for two months of his activity as CEO in 2008.

This amount included a bonus payment of 480,184 euros. He also received stock options with a fair value of more than 1 million euros.

This makes Zumwinkel the only board member who received a bonus for 2008. All other board members had received no bonuses in view of a billion-year loss. Several politicians and the vice-president of the social association VdK , Carin E. Hinsinger , expressed outrage, while Zumwinkel himself defended the payment of his pension entitlements with the words "I'm not the only one who has his pension paid out early". According to pension experts, the amount of 20 million euros can only be explained by the fact that there must have been additional agreements, since the compensation for the annual retirement benefits would, at best, result in a present value of 14.5 million euros.

Book publications

  • Martin R. Stuchtey, Per-Anders Enkvist, Klaus Zumwinkel: A Good Disruption: Redefining Growth in the Twenty-First Century . Bloomsbury, London 2016, ISBN 978-1-4729-3978-4 .

Web links

Commons : Klaus Zumwinkel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Homepage of the Deutsche Post Foundation
  2. ↑ Klaus & Klaus - What connects the ex-bosses of DIW and Post ; handelsblatt.de of February 2, 2011
  3. ↑ Geneviève Hesse: Zumwinkel, Zander and the Nazis. In: Cicero - Magazine for Political Culture , April 2009, pp. 75 ff.
  4. ↑ "It was a big mistake"; Focus from December 16, 2013
  5. ↑ [1] Zumwinkel: Farewell to Germany The lord of the castle from Lake Garda, sueddeutsche.de from February 16, 2009
  6. ↑ a b The Fall of the Yellow Chief faz.net, February 14, 2008
  7. ↑ a b Klaus Zumwinkel ( Memento from January 2, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Vanity Faces
  8. ^ Government welcomes Zumwinkel's resignation sueddeutsche.de, February 15, 2008
  9. ↑ Zumwinkel was supposed to be Unicef ​​boss Spiegel Online, February 16, 2008
  10. ↑ Zumwinkel leaves Arcandor Supervisory Board; Handelsblatt dated January 9, 2009
  11. ↑ Chronicle. Bertelsmann Stiftung, accessed on May 18, 2020 .
  12. ↑ Image from the award on einestages.spiegel.de
  13. ^ Image online from April 21, 2009
  14. ^ RP online from May 21, 2009
  15. ↑ The West, April 22, 2009
  16. ^ Justice accuses Zumwinkel million-dollar fraud Handelsblatt.com, February 14, 2008
  17. ↑ Zumwinkel does not want to be pilloried again Süddeutsche Zeitung, 23 September 2008
  18. ^ Arrest warrant suspended, Spiegel Online, February 14, 2008
  19. ↑ Frank Appel to be the new head of Post Spiegel Online, February 18, 2008
  20. ^ The Yellow Eminence Spiegel Online, February 7, 2008
  21. ↑ Dr. Klaus Zumwinkel resigns from the supervisory board of Deutsche Telekom ( memento from February 19, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Deutsche Telekom AG, February 15, 2008
  22. ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives: suspended sentence for Zumwinkel wdr.de@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.wdr.de
  23. ↑ Spiegel Online sentenced Zumwinkel to 24 months probation on January 26, 2009
  24. ^ Probation for a failed role model Spiegel Online from January 26, 2009
  25. ↑ SPIEGEL of February 2, 2009, p. 17
  26. ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives: Because of the spying affair: Razzia at Ricke and Zumwinkel , Financial Times Germany of March 13, 2009@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.ftd.de
  27. ^ Spiegel-Online March 13, 2009: Raid on ex-Telekom managers Zumwinkel and Ricke
  28. ↑ Spiegel-Online March 14, 2009: Internal note charged Zumwinkel and Ricke in a snooping affair
  29. ↑ Zumwinkel not exonerated - criticism and applause at the Telekom general meeting computerwoche.de
  30. ^ Dispute between the group and former board members settled amicably ( memento of February 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), Telekom press release of February 1, 2011
  31. ↑ Telekom reaches an agreement with Ricke and Zumwinkel ; tagesschau.de, February 1, 2011 ( Memento from February 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  32. ↑ Telekom trade unionists welcome payments from ex-managers , dpa / Westdeutsche Zeitung, February 2, 2011
  33. ↑ a b Süddeutsche Zeitung March 13, 2009: 20 million euros pension
  34. ↑ faz.net March 14, 2009: Post pays Zumwinkel 20 million euros
  35. ^ Handelsblatt February 26, 2009: Post boss cuts bonuses for the board of directors
  36. ↑ Outrage over Zumwinkel N-TV from March 15, 2009
  37. ^ Spiegel-Online March 23, 2009: Zumwinkel's 20 million pension astonishes pension experts
personal data
SURNAME Zumwinkel, Klaus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Zumwinkel, Klaus-Gerhard Maximilian (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German manager
DATE OF BIRTH December 15, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH Rheinberg , North Rhine-Westphalia