Thiel CEO promises year of consolidation
Speaking at the company’s AGM, the new CEO of Thiel Logistik, Dr. Klaus Eierhoff, has set out his company’s strategy for the forthcoming year. Efforts in 2003 will be primarily directed towards consolidation of the company after a number of years’ rapid expansion. Although the company’s acquisition strategy has seen revenues treble to €1.5bn since 2000, operating margins collapsed last year from 7% to 0.1% in 2002.
In order to redress this situation, Dr Eierhoff announced that a tough new economy programme would be introduced concentrating mainly on the reduction of general administration overhead and the increase of productivity. Integration of its many acquisitions will also play an important role, not least of all the increase of centralized planning and visibility across the group. In particular special attention will be given to the integration of its three key acquisitions of the last year: Birkart Globistics, Microlog Logistics and Overbruck, the subsidiary of Axel Springer Verlag. By doing this Eierhoff hopes that Thiel will meet its profit forecasts of €40m and increase its share price which has lost nearly 75% of its value over the last year.
However a quick turn around in the company’s fortunes is likely to prove extremely difficult to achieve. The company is heavily exposed to the German market which has seen little sign of recovery, and the European economy as a whole is still weak. Thiel does however have the benefit of strong financial backers, Delton, which should enable it to ride out the worst of the economic downturn.
