Germany

"Early on we were predominantly European, with two thirds of our profits coming from this large, sophisticated market. Germany, Belgium, Norway and France led the way. We struggled with competitiveness in Italy and withdrew. The UK has been a disappointment. Skills are not what they were, energy is expensive, unions have been aggressive (unlike Germany, where the unions focus on encouraging employers to invest for future growth), although to be fair they have been much more constructive and willing to engage in proper discussions about the genuine health of our businesses over the last ten years, and the government has been uninterested or lacklustre at best. America has been resurgent on the back of world-beating energy costs and frankly fine management. Whereas Europe has slowly squeezed the life from much of its manufacturing base with carbon taxes, complex legislation, high labour and social costs, America has gone into overdrive."

"Though in his mid-seventies, he was uncommonly energetic and seemed as busy as ever: sitting on or chairing a dozen or so boards (including those of his myriad investment companies, the Fraser Institute think-tank, and Canada’s Ocean Supercluster); mentoring aspiring entrepreneurs; and travelling extensively by private jet—even during the height of the pandemic—to places like Labrador (to fish at his world-class salmon lodge), Los Angeles (to visit a biofuels refinery he’d invested in), and Germany (to check on the construction of his new superyacht)."

"Our parent company would be based in Holland because of that country’s attractive tax environment. An Irish company would hold boo’s intellectual property rights, while a string of companies in France, Germany, Sweden, the US and Britain would hold our assets in each of those countries. Patrik loved this sort of work, but Kajsa"

"Joseph Hartmann was a sixteen-year-old immigrant from Germany seeking fortune in the United States. In 1877 he started his business to produce suitcases and travel trunks at a time of huge expansion of the economy and transportation. The period between the wars allows the American company to reach its peak, eventually having over eight hundred models in its catalog."

"During an era of low interest rates, when aggressive acquirers crowded the private market in Sweden, Lifco shifted its focus to less competitive markets such as the UK, Germany, Italy, and the Benelux region. This international expansion has been a significant success, and Lifco has been able to acquire companies of at least the same quality in terms of operating margins at the same prices."

"Lagercrantz’s International division plays a key role in executing this export-focused approach. It extends the group’s successful “niche products” strategy to global markets by building product-specific companies within the division itself. This model, already proven within the group, has led to the formation of successful clusters—such as the marina cluster—and has fueled the growth of companies like Schmitztechnik in Germany and DPC Ilse in the UK."

"Indutrade into the UK and the DACH (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland), where competition for deals was less fierce compared to Sweden. A"

"In Clermont-Ferrand, the old Carmes workshops and the Estaing storage center, built on the eve of the war, were joined in 1924 by the gigantic Cataroux factory, today still the largest in the group. Outside of France, over the years and protectionist regulations, Bibendum has established itself in Great Britain, in Stoke-on-Trent (1927), opened a spinning mill in Italy (1927), and expanded in Germany in Karlsruhe (1931). It’s a lot."

"Thanks to countless industrialists from all backgrounds, obscure or famous inventors multiplying mechanical, electrical, aerodynamic improvements, the automotive boom continues. France is the leading car producer on the European continent and — by far — the largest exporter. In 1907, French manufacturers produced more than twenty-five thousand cars (they quintupled their production since 1900), twice as many as Great Britain (twelve thousand), nearly five times as many as Germany (five thousand one hundred fifty), ten times as many as Italy (two thousand five hundred)."

"And it wasn’t just a transfer of knowledge from America to China. Apple had a specific team of Subject Matter Experts, whose job was to research new processes, new materials, new tools, and new machines. “If the current machines, the current technologies in Asia, were not enough for what we were looking for, the SME team would go to Europe or Japan to search for new technologies,” says a former manufacturing design engineer. “They’d try to find new technologies, new labs, new research facilities, whatever—and if they could find it, they’d try to transfer that to China and make in China what we couldn’t do with the current technology.” This person adds: “This happened every year when we had to launch a new product. Because every year we were pushing the envelope and we’d need something new… Apple identified a lot of technology, for example, in the watch industry and jewelry industry in Switzerland, Germany, and Austria, and they’d go to those places, find these special machines—these special technologies for very refined high-end products—and try to adapt those machines into making an iPhone or iPad or Mac.”"

"Only LEGO bricks were introduced in Germany, none of the other toys. But the German entry proved not to be easy. As in Denmark, the German toy buyers could not see the idea and believed that Germans were interested in mechanical toys. Export advisors in Denmark shook their heads at the thought of exporting toys to Germany, which had the status of the homeland of toys."

"Here are examples of pool vehicles the players used. For Bill Bain, it was the theories of business strategy that had been originated by the Boston Consulting Group. BCG put its ideas such as the Boston Box out into the public domain to build reputation and sell business. When Bill Bain started Bain & Company, he was able to use all BCG’s concepts. They were high-octane stuff, fuelling a whole new industry. Jeff Bezos also used the BCG ideas to develop his philosophy for Amazon, especially dominant market share, and lowest costs and prices. Bezos also benefitted from two other pool vehicles – internet retailing and ‘Californian Venture Capital Syndrome’, which values growth above short-term profits, supporting Amazon’s losses for long years, allowing a focus on customer experience and low prices. Otto von Bismarck rode the rise of nationalism in the nineteenth century. This was his pool vehicle to turn Germany from a fragmented cluster of dozens of independent states into a unified superpower dominating central Europe. The popularity he gained by his unification of Germany pleased the liberal politicians and William, the Prussian King, and kept Bismarck in power for a generation. Winston Churchill’s pool vehicle was the rise of German National Socialism, Hitler’s murderous anti-Semitism, and his own opposition to them. An environmental factor does not have to be appeased or promoted; it can also be a pool vehicle when it is opposed first or most vigorously. Marie Curie’s pool vehicle was the new field of x-rays and radiation. The two pool vehicles which Walt Disney exploited so well were the rise of animated cartoons and, later, the rise of amusement parks. Disneyland was in many ways the opposite of traditional amusement parks, which Walt disdained as ‘nasty, dirty places run by hard-faced men’. Without their existence he would probably not have had the idea for a pristine and uplifting park idealising the best of American small-town values. Leonardo da Vinci would not have been Leonardo if he had not been born where and when he was. Renaissance Florence was his pool vehicle. Bob Dylan’s pool vehicle was the early 1960s folk movement in New York City, with its liberal-protest values, and self-importance, epitomised by his relationship with Joan Baez. He rode them until he became famous, then dumped them sharpish. Albert Einstein benefited from the…"

"Amid the telecom industry’s “winter”, Ren Zhengfei continued with determination. He firmly believed “spring” would certainly arrive and waited optimistically in the chill. After eight years of development, Huawei’s 3G bore fruit. At the end of 2003, it successfully launched the country’s first WCDMA/GSM dual-mode phone. In February 2004, it introduced China’s first WCDMA phone at the Cannes exhibition in France. On November 15, 2004, Huawei officially launched three mature commercial WCDMA terminals in Hong Kong, becoming one of the few global suppliers offering end-to-end 3G solutions. By early 2005, Huawei had showcased a series of 3G terminals at the Cannes and Germany’s CeBit exhibitions, drawing increasing attention to its 3G offerings."

"what my great-grandfather was trying to do was to prepare his children to lead the industrial revolution that had started in England more than half a century earlier, and which Germany was just beginning to enter at that time. In 1861, at the age of nineteen, and after his time at Karlsruhe, Grandfather August enrolled in the Higher Institute of Commerce of Antwerp, a center founded in 1852 that was prestigious worldwide. It was there that he acquired a solid education in both European and world economics, and where he specialized in business administration."

"The construction tycoon was certainly under no illusion that the merger would be complete with the formal restructuring. “It will still take years for the full implementation of the corporate structure.” In 1999, he estimated the costs of the restructuring to be up to 300 million schillings (23 million euros) – a substantial sum for that time: “We have endeavored to take the best from all parts of the group. All costs will be more than offset by the expected synergy effects.” His credo was to become resistant to crises in individual states by spreading the business over several countries: “If, for example, Germany has a headache, we simultaneously have aspirin in Hungary.”"

""Only those who think big achieve big goals. For Wild, thinking big primarily means thinking globally. In the early 1960s, the company was still heavily focused on the German market. But early on, Hans-Peter Wild decided to expand worldwide. He conquered one country after the other. In 1994, in cooperation with Kraft General Food, Capri-Sun also gained market leadership in the United States for flexibly packaged fruit-containing drinks. "Thus, a quarter of a century after production started in Heidelberg, the otherwise usual path in the beverage market had been accomplished in reverse. The surprise was perfect: A refreshing drink from Germany had conquered the American market.""

"I, a native of Heidelberg, left Germany over three decades ago. Since then, I have been living in Switzerland and have since obtained Swiss citizenship. I appreciate this innovation-friendly country, which (despite cantonal differences) is overall less bureaucratized than Germany and has given me the opportunity to be entrepreneurial worldwide from the start. In a way, I didn't emigrate, but returned to the country from which I came from family-wise. But more on that later."

"His heir, Ulisse Cargnel, was the first to also make lenses in Cadore, and in 1900 the company he led was the only one in all of Italy to manufacture the complete glasses of any type of lens. Disguised as a journalist, Cargnel visited lens factories in Germany, in Munich and Nuremberg, and in France, in Ligny, where he studied the most advanced methods for production. He made the secrets of foreign competitors his own, massively increasing production thanks to a technological breakthrough."

"The expansion of the tricolor eyewear does not go unnoticed overseas. Local workers in the sector protest, calling for measures to curb the dominance of European competitors, asking for customs duties and restrictive measures to limit the import of lenses and frames from Europe. By the end of the sixties, Italy has reached the level of France and aims at the continental primacy of Germany. Every year, Italian factories produce no less than twenty-five million pairs of glasses, with over a third of them being exported for a value of 18 billion lire."

"On June 16, 1940, France collapsed. Britain stood alone, under constant air attack and threat of invasion, while Germany controlled all of Europe. “Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties,” Churchill exhorted, “and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’"

"Rupert asked him to investigate the possibility of finding a master brewer in war-shattered Germany who was looking for a future abroad. Steyn set about his inquiries methodically. In 1947 he approached a number of contacts in Germany, asking them if they could put him in touch with: a Munich brewery willing to open a branch in South Africa controlled by South African shareholders; a Munich master brewer willing to emigrate to South Africa with his family and undertake the technical management of a brewery; and a master owner-brewer of a small Munich brewery who would come with his family and all the necessary machinery, to start a new factory from scratch. Despite interest from German brewers, nothing came of these tentative moves as there were problems on the South African side with the realisation of plans to establish a brewery. Steyn was requested to keep the German connection alive for some time, although with the warning that, as a brewery would have to be built up in South Africa from scratch, it would take at least two years before beer could be produced. Meanwhile Rupert concentrated on the tobacco industry."

"JS van der Lingen, who had worked under Albert Einstein in Europe. To Rupert’s amazement he declared categorically that Germany would lose the war. He argued that for all its technological expertise, Germany did not understand mass production. When the USA entered the war Germany would be flattened by bombardment from the air. Besides, said Van Lingen, the Germans always wanted to improve a product instead of mass-producing the armaments required in a war situation."

"Rupert’s conviction that such people had no respect for wine was a major reason why he started promoting estate wines, and why he wanted the wine farmers to receive the honour due to them. His first estate wines were from the farms Montpellier, Theuniskraal and Alto. He also introduced the French and German custom of appellation contrôlée in South Africa, that is, labelling wines as products of a specific estate and its vineyards."

"The product I love the most? Certainly Nutella, but Mon Chéri is the product from the beginnings, the one that excites me to remember. It was the beginning of the fifties and we went to Germany because I thought that the chocolate market should look North, where they consume it all year round."

"(1) It should be remembered that Ettore Bugatti built up his busi- ness and equipped his experimental workshops by his own unaided efforts. He never received subsidies of any kind, unlike his chief foreign competitors who were given considerable financial help by their gov- ernments, notably in Italy and Germany. As for his aeroengines, during the war, they had not brought him a fortune."

"My life, on the whole, was beginning to shape up really well. I was a privileged upper-class boy in materially acceptable condition, on my way through good schools towards a good life, although the emotional quality of the care provided by the upbringing council was second-rate. There was a lack of normal, close, warm, and loving relationships in what children usually call home. The upbringing council's efforts also included keeping me occupied in the summers, not in the way of children, but more as part of my upbringing. During the 1950s, the solution was to send me to Germany for stays with various relatives."

"Ludwig Erhard, the German finance minister and later chancellor and one of the fathers of the German economic miracle"

"He would often visit Germany, at least once a month. He just showed up at the office, completely unannounced. He had taken the morning flight from London. With Erling Persson present, things happened immediately, Thomas Enderstein explains. If the management in Germany had requested additional supplies, it could happen that the Sweden office said no. "You have enough relative to the sales," they thought. But when Erling Persson called and said that the warehouse was empty, they sent supplies immediately. No discussion."

"– The reward was not in the pay envelope. If you showed initiative and took responsibility, you were rewarded. "Go to Värnamo, go to Uddevalla, go to London," they would say when there was a new opening. You did not say no. I got a job in Germany in 1984. I was only 28 then.[11](private://read/01jas9tvg84jycb27616w1f9k8/#note-11)"

"We made Lowenbrau under licence from the German company. We were the first plant to get such a licence to produce foreign quality beer. The royalties we generated for Lowenbrau in Russia had a side effect in that Heineken also showed an interest and ended up buying Lowenbrau in Germany as well."

"Meanwhile, Nicolas Berggruen is occupied with entirely different matters. At the University of California (UCLA), he is completing a crash course in politics. With Brian Walker, he deepens his knowledge in political comparative theory. Walker's area of expertise is the analysis of the American and Chinese systems; he also examines the relationship between the USA and Germany. Furthermore, Berggruen takes private lessons with Brian Copenhaver. The philosopher and historian heads the UCLA department of Medieval and Renaissance. In his seminars, the students learn how to write readable texts, and they are also introduced to Hegelianism. Professor Copenhaver praises Berggruen as "an excellent analyst who asks challenging questions." At this point, Karstadt plays no role in Nicolas Berggruen's thoughts."

"The way Middelhoff acquired the American publisher Random House for Bertelsmann is a legend in itself: Middelhoff flew to New York and delivered a powerful speech to the Jewish owners of the publisher. Almost like Heinz Berggruen when selling his collection to Germany, he built a "bridge of reconciliation" between America and Germany to seize a new historical opportunity: "That a German corporation will in the future take care of the legacy of Jewish literature and current Jewish writers.""

"The key points of the strategy: – the discovery of the sentimental and familial connection to Berlin – Nicolas Berggruen's childhood memories of Karstadt as an iconic German department store – flattering words for Berlin, Germany, the Stülerbau, and the KaDeWe – integration of charitable future plans through Berggruen's patronage in the cultural field – presenting oneself with a modest and shy attitude at public appearances. In the sense of "I am not important, Karstadt is important" - "Picasso and the Berggruen Museum" are important – self-portrayal as a man of discernment, disinterested in material possessions – myth of the self-made man with emphasis on personal achievement: Nicolas Berggruen did not become a billionaire through his father's inherited capital, but made his money himself. With his know-how, he built up the holdings."

"Left over from his time in overalls was an interest in and knowledge of printing and publishing machinery and the people who worked it to create the small daily miracle that rattled off the presses. He committed to spending millions of dollars on a new Manroland press from Germany. But buying the state-of-the-art press was just the beginning. He didn’t want to drop a V8 engine into an old jalopy; instead of haggling over discounts or other side benefits, he negotiated an agreement for Manroland to refurbish the entire plant. Years later, one of Stokes’s employees would also recall his far-sighted plan of laying a new concrete floor in the press hall, precisely formed with a tiny downward incline so that the huge reels of paper could be rolled into place with no strain on the pressroom hands. The boss remembered what it was like to do the dirty work, and created one of the cleanest and best press halls in the country."

"René Benko created something great and then destroyed much of it. Solid business operations and trust in the solidity of the real estate business were left by the wayside. Even though the business and legal processing will take years and it is likely that Benko will have to face court, he did not build the castle in the air called Signa alone. He readily found financiers, including wealthy private individuals, bank managers and insurance people, foundation managers, and Arab sheikhs. Benko invited them to his yacht "Roma" or his estate high above Lake Garda, or he quickly flew to Dubai or Abu Dhabi, to Hamburg or Vienna on his private plane. And all the economic experts willingly gave him capital, apparently without really examining his business model. Just as auditors and real estate appraisers played their roles in the illusion theater of the Austrian entrepreneur. The lawmakers in Germany and Austria, who left gaps through which the clever newcomer slipped, also bear some of the blame."

"René Benko created something great and then destroyed much of it. Solid business operations and trust in the solidity of the real estate business were left by the wayside. Even though the business and legal processing will take years and it is likely that Benko will have to face court, he did not build the castle in the air called Signa alone. He readily found financiers, including wealthy private individuals, bank managers and insurance people, foundation managers, and Arab sheikhs. Benko invited them to his yacht "Roma" or his estate high above Lake Garda, or he quickly flew to Dubai or Abu Dhabi, to Hamburg or Vienna on his private plane. And all the economic experts willingly gave him capital, apparently without really examining his business model. Just as auditors and real estate appraisers played their roles in the illusion theater of the Austrian entrepreneur. The lawmakers in Germany and Austria, who left gaps through which the clever newcomer slipped, also bear some of the blame."

"Their former foundation board director, Werner Müller, former Federal Minister of Economics, wants to increase the foundation's capital to be able to bear the billion-dollar costs for water management regarding the mining shafts left behind. "So far, we have largely invested in government bonds. But since their interest rates are currently lower than inflation, there is a decrease in value," Müller said in an interview with Rheinische Post in 2013. In the future, they plan to invest up to 35 percent of their assets in the private economy. "For example, we are looking for medium-sized companies in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria that already have a strong position in the market.""

"Their former foundation board director, Werner Müller, former Federal Minister of Economics, wants to increase the foundation's capital to be able to bear the billion-dollar costs for water management regarding the mining shafts left behind. "So far, we have largely invested in government bonds. But since their interest rates are currently lower than inflation, there is a decrease in value," Müller said in an interview with Rheinische Post in 2013. In the future, they plan to invest up to 35 percent of their assets in the private economy. "For example, we are looking for medium-sized companies in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria that already have a strong position in the market.""

"In the process, and at his scale (which is not yet the same as that of Kuhlman, Motte, and Gillet, alongside whom he almost seems like the poor relative), Boussac attempts to establish himself in Alsace without success; but, on Léderlin’s advice, he pulls off a nice move: the low-cost purchase, in Poland, of a German-manufactured plant under sequestration, Zyrardov, near Warsaw, with 3,000 workers."

"We made Lowenbrau under licence from the German company. We were the first plant to get such a licence to produce foreign quality beer. The royalties we generated for Lowenbrau in Russia had a side effect in that Heineken also showed an interest and ended up buying Lowenbrau in Germany as well."