Schwarzmüller Group – Restructuring General Management and the Supervisory Board
Schwarzmüller Group is reshuffling its managerial structure. CEO Roland Hartwig has resigned from his position. Three Managing Directors will take care of operative management. That’s what Beate Paletar, sole proprietor and chairwoman of the Supervisory Board announced today, Tuesday, 28 February, at the Hanzing headquarters in Freinberg near Schärding (Upper Austria).
As the sole proprietor, she decided to take a stricter hold of the reins, said Paletar. After decades, this option now returned after gathering all shares in the company in one hand. She wishes to benefit from this chance by consistently progressing the group as a family-owned business. Paletar stressed the fact that she worked for operative management between 2005 and 2012 .
Her first step is to start reshuffling General Management and the Supervisory Board. Experienced manager Dipl.-Ing. Thomas Biringer will be responsible for rapidly optimising all operative processes. As the COO, he will join forces with CFO Mag. Michael Hummelbrunner to lead the operative entities. CSO Wolfgang Köster, previous POA and responsible for new vehicles sales, will be the CSO and responsible for all sales activities. These three persons will make up the new General Management – now lo longer headed by a CEO – and establish closer links with the Supervisory Board.
It was an amicable decision to let Roland Hartwig go, said Paletar. She thanked the leaving CEO for his seven years of company service since 2016. By redesigning production at all company sites or presenting the range of vehicles and their technical advancements to the marketplace, Hartwig defined milestones in the company’s further development.
Upgrade to the Supervisory Board
Paletar, herself chairing the Supervisory Board since January, said she wished to upgrade this supervisory body and to carefully speed up its strategic advancement. She will try to convince renowned industry experts to join it. The first person successfully introduced to this role is Mag. Klaus Rinnerberger, hitherto member of the board of Pierer Industrie AG. “In recent years, we invested a lot in international expansion to double our sales and gain extra shares in the market of many European countries”, said the chairwoman of the Supervisory Board. Schwarzmüller Group is Europe’s largest niche supplier of trailers that add value to its customers’ businesses. Although the Group will stick to this course, it will also review its focus and the speed of development.
2022: Record-breaking sales, extreme purchase prices
A sales volume of 446 million euros (2021: 409 million euros; +9 percent) and a production output of exactly 10,599 vehicles (9,962; +5 percent) made 2022 another record-breaking fiscal year for Schwarzmüller Group. Despite an impressive pile of orders, procuring some special parts was considerably delayed, which somewhat slowed down vehicle completion in the long-haul trailers segment. At the same time, the group experienced soaring purchase prices. The company responded by increasing its own prices accordingly, said Paletar.
Source/photo: schwarzmueller.com
