Some of Germany’s largest family-owned groups — including Porsche, Schaeffler, Merckle and Haniel — are opening up to the bond market, according to
a
Financial Times
report.
The move comes as a result of last year’s economic and banking crisis, and is a trend bankers hope will be followed by the country’s many small and medium-sized companies.
An observer in the banking industry told the
FT
that the family firms’ move toward capital markets began because “negotiations with banks have become much harder during the crisis.”
Law professor Brun-Hagen Hennerkes told the
FT:
“There is a new successor generation in family-owned companies that is educated in global business schools and that does not have an aversion against capital markets.”
Schaeffler, the giant auto parts and ball bearings company, opened up to the public after the controlling family almost lost the business following a takeover of larger rival Continental.
After the suicide of Adolf Merckle last year, his son Ludwig sold a large stake in one of the company’s main holdings, HeidelbergCement, to the stock market. Porsche has started to publish quarterly results in anticipation of its merger with Volkswagen next year.
In contrast to these companies, whose entry into public markets was forced, Haniel issued a 1 billion euro five-year, high-yield bond last year as a way of replacing “unreliable” bank financing, the
FT
article said. (Source:
Financial Times,
Aug. 17, 2010.)
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