The family-owned Oetker Group, which also includes Germany's largest brewery conglomerate, the Radeberger Group, will most likely split up. The Manager Magazin and the Lebensmittelzeitung unanimously report evidence that the long-divided family is likely to split up the diversified group among themselves.
The family quarrel at Oetker is legendary. On the one hand there are five older half-siblings from the first two marriages of Patriarch Rudolf-August Oetker, who died in 2007, and on the other hand there are three younger half-siblings from the third marriage, who insist on more influence in the company. It had already been examined in previous years whether the group should be split between these two camps in order to resolve the conflict.
In November, the children from Rudolf-August Oetker's third marriage, Alfred, Carl-Ferdinand and Julia Oetker, founded a company called Geschwister-Oetker-Beteiligungen-KG. The Henkell & Freixenet sparkling wine division has also been outsourced to a new Oetker holding company, and recently a Dr. Oetker Beteiligungen SE was created.
According to the reports, the family has already agreed on the split of the group which most recently achieved sales of EUR 7.4 billion (USD 9.1bn) with around 34,000 employees. One part of the family will receive the beverage business including the beverage home delivery service Flaschenpost which was recently acquired for about EUR 1 billion (inside.beer, 1.11.2020), the other part of the family will receive the food division with products like frozen pizza, baking powder, cake mixes, yogurts, pudding, cake decoration and cornflakes.
The financial activities of the groups are bundled in Bankhaus Lampe. Last year, Oetker announced the sale of Bankhaus Lampe to the private bank Hauk & Aufhäuser which is since 2016 part of the Chinese Fosun Group.
Until four years ago, Oetker ago also owned the world's seventh-biggest container operator, Hamburg Süd, which was sold in 2016 for EUR 3.7 billion (USD 4.3) to Danish conglomerate AP Moeller-Maersk. (inside.beer, 3.12.2016)
In March 2019, after reaching the applicable age limit, the 75-year-old long-time advisory board chairman, Dr. h.c. August Oetker resigned from his mandate. In his place, Rudolf Louis Schweizer took over the office. He is the grandson of Rudolf-August Oetker and has been a member of the advisory board of Dr. August Oetker KG.
