Helmut Hoerz will be the third resturing expert within the last 4 years to head the ailing Warsteiner Group from the namesake village in Germany south of Dortmund. On July 1, he will join Warsteiner as new Chief Financial Officer and will assume the role of spokesman for the management from Christian Gieselmann who will continue to perform his role has Chief Marketing Officer of the company. Former CFO Carsten Rockholtz, is said to relocates his life abroad and will therefore leave the company.
Gieselmann himself took over this role at the end of 2018 from his colleague Alessandra Cama, who like him came from Roland Berger Strategy Consultants and who held the position for less than two years. (inside.beer, 29.10.2018)
Hoerz is known as a restructuring expert. His last assignment was as CEO with Homann Feinkost GmbH, a German deli company involved in the production of deli salads, fish deli, remoulades, spreads, dressings and seasoning sauces. Within the first three month after he joined Homann in March 2019, he closed two production plants in Thuringia and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
“In Helmut Hoerz, we have been able to win a very experienced manager who has a high level of expertise in retail and the food industry and with whom we will continue to strategically position our company for the future,” Catharina Cramer, owner of the Warsteiner Group is quoted in a media release.
It is expected that one of Hoerz’ main tasks at Warsteiner will be to find a solution for the distressed Herforder Brewery, a regional brewery bought in 2007 which had never performed up to the expected targets. Herforder is located in the namesake city in Westfalia, employs 100 people and had a pre-COVID production of about 500,000 hl of beer (thereof about half of the volume as contract brews).
Gieselmann already put Herforder up for sale but could not find a buyer. Last summer after he announced to keep the brewery, he started a costly marketing campaign for Herforder and earlier this year he renewed long-lasting sponsorship agreements with regional sports clubs. Born in Herford, it is assumed that he was reluctant to close the brewery. This could now be the task of Hoerz.
