Wolfgang Peiner

Wolfgang Peiner (born October 14, 1943 in Hamburg ) is a German business manager . From 2001 to 2006 he was a member of the CDU Finance Senator for the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg.

Life

His father was a self-employed master painter . After graduating from secondary school , Peiner first completed an apprenticeship as a forwarding agent at the Kuehne + Nagel company in Hamburg. After the subsequent High School , he studied from 1967 on a scholarship from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation at the University of Hamburg and Lawrence, Kansas , Business Administration and graduated in 1969 as a " Master of Science in Accounting and Finance" and in 1971 as a graduate -Kaufmann from. In 1973 he received his doctorate on "Accounting for American Commercial Banks". rer. pole. In 1975 Peiner was appointed as a tax advisor and in 1978 as an auditor .

At the age of 16, Wolfgang Peiner joined the CDU youth organization Junge Union and at 17 the CDU . From 1978 to 1984 he was a member of the Hamburg parliament , first as a financial policy spokesman and from 1982 to 1984 chairman of the audit committee, secretary in the budget committee and at the same time deputy chairman of the CDU parliamentary group .

In 1971 he started at the auditing firm Arthur Andersen in Hamburg. In 1977 he moved to CURA Vermögensverwaltung , a company of the Otto Group , as authorized signatory and later as managing director , and in 1984 finally to the board of directors of Gothaer Lebensversicherung in Göttingen , of which he was chairman from 1988 to 1990. From 1990 to 2001 he was CEO of Gothaer Insurance Group in Cologne and in the first joint CEO of Gothaer insurance companies since its founding in 1820 or 1827. He formed the Gothaer organized group, the 1996 under the name Parium the Berlin-Cologne Lebensversicherung aG and Berlin-Kölnische Krankenversicherung aG was expanded. In 2001, under his responsibility as chairman of the board of the group, the corporation was transformed into the Gothaer subordinate group that exists today under the leadership of Gothaer Versicherungsbank VVaG. He resigned from his position as CEO of Gothaer Insurance Bank on October 31, 2001 after being appointed Senator of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg .

Peiner was also a member of the board of directors of Treuhandanstalt BVS from 1993 to 1998 , of the supervisory board of Deutsche Lufthansa AG from 1994 to 2001, of the board of directors of Kuehne + Nagel International AG from 1998 to 2001 and of the then Bankgesellschaft Berlin AG until October 31, 2001 .

In 2001, Peiner was appointed Senator for Finance to the Senate of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, headed by Ole von Beust . He was considered to be the strategic head of the Senate and the driving force behind the model "Metropolis Hamburg - growing city", which shaped the politics of the Senate from Ole von Beust. From December 3, 2001 to November 28, 2006 he was federal treasurer of the CDU. As senator and president of the tax authorities, after five years, he succeeded in submitting a balanced budget for the 2007/2008 double budget, the first balanced budget since the end of the war, as part of a difficult consolidation process. He negotiated the acquisition of a 10% stake in Beiersdorf AG and thus, together with the brothers Michael and Wolfgang Herz, ensured the independence of the Hamburg-based company.

As Hamburg Senator for Finance, Peiner pushed ahead in 2003 with the merger of the Landesbanken in Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein and the conversion into a stock corporation in preparation for an IPO . The merged bank followed the strategy of its predecessor institutions begun by the Red-Green state governments in Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein with a focus on ship lending and credit substitute business by raising money on the capital market using guarantor liability. The establishment of the bank was a joint effort by Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein, was supported by the participating state governments in Hamburg (CDU, FDP, Schill) and Schleswig-Holstein (SPD, Greens) and by all parliamentary groups in both state parliaments. At the end of 2006, the US fund JC Flowers, an internationally recognized investor, joined the group of shareholders. This was seen internationally as the first important step towards privatizing the bank. At this point in time - the end of 2006 - there was no sign of any potential difficulties for the bank. After retiring from the position of finance senator and retiring from politics at the end of 2006, he became independent chairman of the supervisory board at the request of all four shareholders with the aim of preparing the IPO with the management board. In 2007 the first warning signs appeared on the financial markets. In spring 2008, in view of the situation on the financial markets, contrary to the opinion of the board of directors, Peiner initiated a change of strategy for the bank - "Weatherproof strategy", which was geared towards consolidation instead of growth. As a result of the global financial crisis, the bank ran into financial difficulties after the Lehman bankruptcy and had to make use of an injection of 3 billion euros from the states of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein. Peiner's term of office as chairman of the supervisory board ended on July 1, 2009. Despite the wishes of the shareholders, he was not available for re-election. The global structural shipping crisis and its consequences for the bank's loan portfolio were not recognizable to the supervisory board, its auditors and the banking supervisory board at this point, but after 2012 it led to considerable losses for the bank. In contrast to the decision-makers on the bank's board of directors, the members of the supervisory board and representatives of state politics in both federal states, Peiner acknowledged from the outset that he was jointly responsible for the negative development of the bank: “We do not have the weaknesses and weaknesses of the board of directors recognized in time ".

After his retirement from politics at the end of 2006, Wolfgang Peiner was reappointed as auditor in May 2007 and took over a post as general representative of the auditing company Susat & Partner , which he resigned on December 31, 2010.

Since 2007 Peiner has represented the Hamburg entrepreneurs Günter Herz , Michael Herz and Klaus-Michael Kühne on supervisory and administrative boards. He was chairman of the supervisory board of Germanischer Lloyd AG from 2007 to 2013, has been a member of the supervisory board of maxingvest AG since 2008, and from 2007 to 2012 a member of the board of directors of Kühne + Nagel International AG , and since 2007 of the board of directors of Kühne Holding AG and the board of trustees of Kühne- Foundation .

Furthermore, Wolfgang Peiner was the Spiritus Rector and negotiator of the Albert Ballin consortium , a group of investors led by Klaus-Michael Kühne , in 2008 and 2009 . The Hamburg consortium took over the majority of the transport and logistics company Hapag-Lloyd . Peiner ensured that the Hanseatic City of Hamburg, the insurers Signal-Iduna and Hanse Merkur as well as HSH-Nordbank were involved in the consortium.

He was a member of the supervisory board of Studio Hamburg GmbH until he was elected to the administrative board of NDR in 2008 , where he became chairman in 2010 and held this position until 2013.

From April 1, 2010 to January 31, 2012, Peiner was the founding president of the private Kühne Logistics University - University of Applied Sciences for Logistics and Management in Hamburg.

Others

From 1995 to 2001 Peiner was treasurer of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and chairman of the board of the Gothaer Kulturstiftung.

In 2008, at the suggestion of the founder of the German National Foundation, former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt , he was appointed to the foundation's board of directors, of which he was a member until summer 2018. From 2007 to 2012 he was a member of the University Council of the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg . Since 2015 he has been a member of the board of trustees of “Peter Tamm sr. Foundation ”, which is the sponsor of the International Maritime Museum .

Peiner is the author of numerous articles and questions about accounting and the development of the insurance industry.

literature

• The accounting of American commercial banks . Business publishing house Gabler, Wiesbaden 1974, ISBN 3-409-16081-7 .
• Act for Hamburg. Experience from business and politics . Murmann Verlag, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86774-155-2 .
• Basis of the mutual insurance association - Gothaer Insurance 1995
• The use of the US trust for German shareholders , Law of the International Economy, August 1983, p. 593 ff
• The further development of the concept of reciprocity in the European environment, insurance industry, December 1, 2000
• New impetus for construction in the East , The political opinion, September 1996, p. 5 ff
• Influences of domestic and foreign financial service providers on product design in life insurance , Journal for the entire insurance science, 1991, p. 267 ff
• A mixed model for long-term care insurance , Die Welt, November 28, 1991

Individual evidence

1. ↑ From businessman to senator - stages of a career. In: Hamburger Abendblatt. November 2, 2006.
2. ↑ Thies Goldberg "HSH Nordbank A Comment" in "We in the North", 1/2018 p. 30 ff
3. ↑ "Billions sunk - how did that happen?" In: "Hamburger Abendblatt" February 17, 2018
4. ^ "HSH Nordbank is a joint effort" In: "Hamburger Abendblatt" February 9, 2017
5. ^ Journal of Insurance. 9/2007, p. 300.
6. ↑ Susat & Partner: Wolfang Peiner becomes general representative. ( Memento from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) In: FAZ. April 13, 2007 (accessed January 10, 2011)
7. ^ Germanischer Lloyd: Peiner new head of the supervisory board. In: Verkehrsrundschau. February 15, 2007.
8. ↑ Peiner becomes supervisory board member of Tchibo parent company maxingvest. In: Hamburger Abendblatt. May 6, 2008.
9. ↑ German National Foundation appoints ex-Senator Peiner to the board. In: Hamburger Abendblatt. June 12, 2008.

See also

• Senate von Beust I - Senate von Beust II