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There is a short beep, then the revolving doors at the main entrance rattle, the Viessmann employees move in small groups towards the parking lot, backpacks or laptop bags on their shoulders. It’s a quiet afternoon in Allendorf an der Eder, 7,500 inhabitants, a few neat half-timbered houses, home of one of the best-known family businesses in the country, whose workforce is now disappearing into the evening. The men briefly enliven the otherwise deserted forecourt in front of the company headquarters, then it’s so quiet again that you can hear machines humming in the distance and the flagpoles with the Viessmann logo rattling. “Television,” says one, “was already there,” and only then does it become clear that it wasn’t a day like any other – for Viessmann, for the workforce, for Allendorf an der Eder.
Yesterday morning, the company management confirmed what has been dominating the news since Tuesday: The heating engineer with 106 years of history is selling its core business, the air conditioning division including the booming heat pumps, to the US group Carrier. It is a flight forward: Because cheap-producing competitors from Asia are likely to flood the market in the coming years, Viessmann is joining an even stronger partner who promises better access to financial strength, delivery and production capacities. The Americans paid 12 billion euros to Viessmann for this, and 11,000 employees got a new employer.
It is a radical break for the family company, which has always referred to its almost 14,500 employees as “family members”, a “very special day”, admits company boss Max Viessmann. When he explained the deal to the workforce at a digital staff meeting at 10 a.m., he sometimes did so in tears, as reported by someone who was there. “It was very emotional”.
In front of the factory gates, employees report that the mood among the workforce is divided. We have to wait and see what will happen now. “Of course there are unanswered questions, but I’m not really unsure,” says one. Anyone who has worked at Viessmann for a long time knows that changes are part of the company, says another.
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