On Friday, the shareholders of Schaeffler-AG set the important course for the upcoming merger with Regensburg-based Vitesco AG. The share structure of the industrial and automotive supplier has been adjusted so that only ordinary shares with voting rights will be issued in the future. To date, all ordinary shares are in the hands of the entrepreneurial family of Georg Schaeffler and his mother Maria-Elisabeth Schaeffler-Thumann.
The 82-year-old has now retired from the company’s operational activities for reasons of age. The Schaeffler family is giving up an important privilege in favor of the merger with Vitesco. “We will continue to be a family business,” said Georg Schaeffler at an extraordinary general meeting on Friday. The objective is for the Schaeffler family to hold 70 percent of the shares in the future merged company. 30 percent should be in free float.
The actual merger is to be decided at the general meetings of Schaeffler and Vitesco at the end of April. It would create one of the largest supplier companies in Germany with sales of 25 billion euros, 120,000 employees and more than 100 factories worldwide.
Vitesco, which was spun off from Schaeffler’s sister company Conti in 2021 and listed on the stock exchange, is considered a specialist in electric drives. Schaeffler announced in January that it had already collected almost 89 percent of Vitesco shares. Schaeffler initially offered 91 euros per Vitesco share, but then increased its offer to 94 euros after Vitesco protested.
