Renate Thyssen-Henne

Renate Thyssen-Henne

Renate Thyssen-Henne (* 20 June 1939 in Bottrop as Renate Kerkhoff ) is a German entrepreneur.

Professional background

Thyssen-Henne comes from the Westphalian entrepreneurial family Kerkhoff (wood sawmill, gravel pits, textile and clothing company), whose founder was her grandfather Hermann Kerkhoff. After completing secondary school, Renate Kerkhoff did an internship in a travel agency in Bottrop. At the age of 18 she was hired as a secretary by the Frankfurt branch of the US Honeywell group. In addition, she took courses in business English, business administration and management and worked as a photo model . At the age of 20 she founded her first company, which four years later had 150 employees. At the age of 25, Kerkhoff founded the restaurant chain “Zum Gumpelmann ” with 12 branches in Aachen, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, Cologne, Heidelberg and other German cities.

In the early 1970s, Bodo and Renate Thyssen founded the "Thyssen Private Clinic" in Prien am Chiemsee, which is no longer in operation . At the end of the 1970s, Renate Thyssen concentrated her business activities as a builder and owner of numerous properties on the real estate market.

Wienerwald affair

At the end of June 1986 Renate Thyssen acquired the then troubled catering company “ Wienerwald ” from Bayerische Landesbank , Dresdner Bank and two Swiss banks for 12 million francs instead of the originally estimated 40 million DM. Thyssen acted as a front man for the insolvent owner Friedrich Jahn , as one option provided for the later takeover by Jahn. Jahn was a buyer of the fresh towels produced by her first company as well as the restaurant chain. The political affair occurred because, on the one hand, Thyssen's financial advisor, Dieter Krautzig, represented the interests of both Bayerische Landesbank and Thyssens in the collecting society, and on the other hand, because they had a relationship with Landesbank President Ludwig Huber at the time. Jahn gives her his shares free of charge and is employed by the Vienna Woods for it. A few weeks later Jahn bought the German Wienerwald restaurants for 2.5 million DM. After the sale of other loss-making subsidiaries in France, Sweden and Egypt, Thyssen concentrated on the core business in Austria with the local 54 restaurants, 10 motorway service stations, 5 hotels and 1,500 employees. This collided with an option for Jahn to acquire the profitable Austrian Wienerwald restaurants for 25 million DM plus taxes by August 31, 1987. At the end of January 1987, Jahn wanted to exercise this option. A legal dispute began that culminated in public abuse. Jahn was ultimately unable to raise the necessary money for the option at the end of August. The affair became public when it became known that bank president Huber had joined the supervisory board for “Wienerwald Austria” in June. The Bayerische Landesbank was not informed of this and so Huber had to resign as President of the Bayerische Landesbank in 1988. Under the leadership of Renate Thyssen, the "Wienerwald" rose to become the largest catering company in Austria. In 1988 the Austrian business magazine “Success” named her Manager of the Year . At the end of the 1980s she sold the company to the City of Vienna . In 1988, Jahn had to sell the 230 Wienerwald restaurants to the British spirits manufacturer Grand Met.

social commitment

In 2002, together with her husband and daughter Gabriele , she founded the aid organization SOS-Projects für Mensch und Tier e. V. based in Munich. It does not have a DZI seal.

Private life

Renate Thyssen-Henne was married five times. After a first marriage that lasted only three months, in 1962 she married the Essen entrepreneur's son Helmut Homey, with whom she has two children, Gabriele Princess zu Leiningen and Joachim Helmut, who is an entrepreneur at McDonald's Germany. In 1969 she married the German industrialist and doctor Bodo Thyssen (grandson of Joseph Thyssen ), who adopted both children. She was married to her divorce lawyer Detlef Wunderlich, who later became the husband of the violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter , for seven years. Her fifth husband was the entrepreneur Ernst Theodor Henne (son of the well-known racing driver Ernst Henne ), with whom she was married until his death in 2018.

Web links

Commons : Renate Thyssen-Henne  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Renate Thyssen-Henne in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Henne in the Vienna Woods . In: Der Spiegel . No. 50 , 1987 ( online ).
2. ↑ piece by piece . In: Der Spiegel . No. 53 , 1987 ( online ).
3. ↑ Hu is Hu . In: Der Spiegel . No. 5 , 1988, pp. 104-106 ( online ).
4. ↑ Bad mistakes . In: Der Spiegel . No. 53 , 1991 ( online ).