French finished vehicle carrier STVA has upped its stake in Werner Egerland Automobillogistik from 20% to 74% this week following the retirement of the German logistics company’s managing director, Felicitas Egerland.
“Up to now Mrs Egerland has had up to 80% of the shares but, at the age of 80 years, and after a good year for Egerland, she decided to hand over the majority to STVA and retire,” Egerland’s chairman and managing director Kay Hanns Ewaldsen told Automotive Logistics News.
Mrs Egerland remains a shareholder with 26% of the company but the 54% share rise for STVA is significant in the company’s group holding throughout Europe.
In a statement STVA said that “in becoming the leading Franco-German provider of finished vehicle logistics, the group’s ambition is to answer all the needs of the automotive industry, which on the Continent nowadays has clearly expanded from the West to Central and more [eastern] parts of Europe.”
According to Ewaldsen, the move constitutes an extension of the cooperation that both companies have been involved in since 2002, and will bring benefits to finished vehicle multimodal transport in a widening European market.
“We will try to optimise our international flows and find synergies in multimodal transport,” he said “If you look at where STVA and Egerland are located, it is a perfect fit for both companies to create a network that is based on flows passing through Germany and flows that go to the east or the west from it on both modalities – road and rail.”
The move will not affect Egerland’s corportate identity.
Felicitas Egerland joined the management board in 1979 when her husband, eponymous founder of the company, Werner Egerland, fell ill. He started the company in Berlin during 1949, moving headquarters to Osnabrück in 1955 where it is still based. The company celebrated its 60th anniversary last year.
