The power struggle at Germany’s largest steel company, Thyssenkrupp, continues to escalate. After Supervisory Board Chairman Sigmar Gabriel, former German SP Vice Chancellor, resigned on Thursday – along with three other Supervisory Board members of Thyssenkrupp Steel Europe AG and steel boss Bernhard Osburg and three Executive Board members – the works council held consultations and meetings in Duisburg yesterday. Gabriel justified his resignation by saying that a trusting collaboration with company CEO Miguel Lopez and Group Supervisory Board Chairman Siegfried Russwurm was no longer possible. Russwurm is also President of the Federation of German Industries.
Lopez had publicly criticized Osburg in the dispute over the future of the group’s steel division. Lopez’s aim was apparently to persuade the board to give up, explained Gabriel. Lopez wanted to reduce production capacity due to weak demand and outsource the steel business to a 50:50 joint venture with the energy holding company of Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky. Employee representatives fear that this would result in the loss of thousands of jobs. Lopez also argued with steel boss Osburg about the amount of the dowry that the parent company should give the subsidiary in return for its independence. Steel supervisory board chairman Gabriel had stated that the division saw a financing requirement that was around 1.3 billion euros more than what the group was offering.
Personal farewell message
The resigned steel boss of Thyssenkrupp, Bernhard Osburg, regretted the development in an internal letter to employees yesterday. “We were not finished with our work and had very concrete ideas about how we could have continued the successful path of the past few years and led the company into an economically independent future,” he said in a “personal farewell message”.
Osburg and two other board members of the steel division had also announced their resignation in the dispute with the company’s management over the future. The events of the past few days had been a great burden for everyone, wrote Osburg. And he stated with regret: “From now on, we will no longer be able to help shape the future of this company.” In the letter, the manager advocated supporting the remaining team. “In these very difficult times, trust, respect and solidarity are needed to overcome the great challenges.”
After the resignations, the parent company announced that the remaining board members Dennis Grimm (technology) and Philipp Conze (finance) would continue to run the steel segment’s business. “The vacant positions will be filled promptly in a structured process,” it said. The vacant departments will be divided up in the meantime. Supervisory Board Chairman Russwurm explained in a statement that the steel management had repeatedly missed its own plans and had not found any answers to structural challenges.
27,000 employees, share price fell
The Thyssenkrupp steel division is Germany’s largest steel producer. 27,000 people are employed there, 13,000 of them in Duisburg alone. The value of the share has almost halved this year. At the start of trading on Friday, the share slipped 1.5 percent, but quickly turned slightly positive.
