Skip to main content

The Interplay
of Forces

Our business environment is currently uncomfortable. The pandemic, inflation, faltering supply chains and a critical global political situation are making daily life unusually difficult. In addition to this, we are undergoing an internal transforma-tion. In this situation, functioning coordination processes between managers and stakeholders are particularly important.

The communication channels in our group of companies are traditionally very short. Not only is that very helpful for making
fast decisions, but it also promotes a good culture of cooperation. Regular and frequent, even infor-mal, communication within the group of managers plays a key role in ensuring that we collaboratively take the right steps in the vast majority of cases for the successful balancing of interests.


A family influence

For our legal structure, we have chosen the rarely selected legal form of a partnership limited by shares (KGaA) for our presence on the trading floor. It allows individuals or families to raise cap-ital on or off the stock exchange, without losing entrepreneurial influence. This fits us perfectly, as the long-term strategic foresight of a major-ity-owned founding family shines through in our day-to-day business.

By consensus

Our employees are extremely important. Ultimate-ly, it is the commitment of the entire workforce that enables us to achieve our goals. Our Supervisory Board is made up of shareholder and employee representatives in accordance with the One-Third Participation Act, meaning that not only the inter-ests of the owners but also those of the workforce carry weight when it comes to policy-making is-sues.

We maintain long-term relationships with financ-ing partners, on both the equity capital and debt capital sides. Both groups value the fact that the principle of prudence plays a key role with us. Nothing changes about this primacy of prudence, even though we are currently embarking on rais-ing our refinery processes to a new level. It would be risky if we were to simply continue in an envi-ronment that is changing so radically.

Risk-aware and entrepreneurial over the long term

For us to stay on the right track, strategically, operationally and – of course – also economical-ly, we perform professional risk management. It regularly reflects back to us, irrespective of our interests, where we are at the moment and where fields of action may be opening up. Our conserva-tive accounting policies help us to track our planning over the long term. This not only gives our equity providers security, but also our employees and partners.
A key asset for the successful continuation of our corporate history is our strong reputation, which we have built up over many years thanks to our steadfast reliability. It gives us the important leap of faith in an internal and external relationship, which we specifically need in those areas where we are breaking new ground. Our strict compli-ance rules and a code of conduct help us to protect this reputation.