Pump and valve manufacturer KSB AG is now trading as KSB SE & Co KGaA.
The change of legal form, which is designed to maintain KSB’s stable ownership structure while opening up new strategic options for development, follows a resolution adopted at the company’s 2017 Annual General Meeting.
The new legal form does not involve any changes for the company’s business partners, customers, suppliers and staff. The holders of ordinary and preference shares of what was KSB AG have become limited partners of the new company on the same terms.
The operations of the partnership limited by shares – Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien (KGaA) – will be headed by Dr Stephan Timmermann, Dr Stephan Bross, Ralf Kannefass and Dr Matthias Schmitz as managing directors.
The company will be managed by KSB Management SE as the general partner. As well as the four managing directors, KSB Management SE includes five administrative board members: Oswald Bubel (chair), Monika Kühborth, Andrea Teutenberg, Günther Koch and Dr Harald Schwager. Bubel and Kühborth will resign from the KSB supervisory board with effect from 31 January 2018. Among other things, the administrative board will set strategic guidelines and monitor their implementation.
“While the administrative board formally is the highest authority for the partnership limited by shares (KGaA), its members rather see themselves as sparring partners for management,” explained Bubel. “What we can achieve together should be more than what we can do on our own. This is our goal.”
Dr Timmermann sees the close organisational ties between the administrative board and management in KSB Management SE as an opportunity to jointly set the company’s future course: “The new form of cooperation affords an excellent opportunity to discuss and review ideas for shaping the future with experienced experts early on.”
More than 80% of the ordinary shares of the new KSB SE & Co KGaA will continue to be held by Johannes and Jacob Klein GmbH, a subsidiary of the not-for-profit KSB Stiftung [KSB Foundation] and the Kühborth-Stiftung GmbH. KSB says that the change of legal form will in principle enable KSB SE & Co KGaA to raise capital on the stock market without the stabilising factor of the shareholders of Johannes and Jacob Klein GmbH being diminished.
