[bimmerj]

     Featured on BIMMERPOST.com

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...gul-dies-at-89

Johanna Quandt, the billionaire widow whose husband saved Germany’s BMW AG from bankruptcy half a century ago and laid the foundations for the company to become the largest maker of luxury cars, has died. She was 89. She died Aug. 3 at her home in Bad Homburg, Germany, according to an e-mailed statement from the Johanna Quandt Foundation. No cause was given.

The third wife and onetime secretary of Herbert Quandt, Johanna Quandt inherited a 16.7 percent stake in Munich-based BMW, the largest single holding in the company, when her husband died in 1982. Her shareholding in the world’s biggest luxury carmaker will remain in the family, foundation spokesman Joerg Appelhans said.

Quandt also owned a stake in Datacard Group, a closely held Minnetonka, Minnesota-based credit-card and passport maker, and held shares in Gemalto NV, a publicly traded security-software designer based in Amsterdam.

“For over 50 years Johanna Quandt has acted for BMW with enthusiasm and passion,” BMW Chief Executive Officer Harald Krueger said in a statement. “She gave the company support and stability.”

Johanna Quandt’s net worth of $11.5 billion ranked 98th in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and eighth within Germany. BMW has a market value of 60 billion euros ($65.4 billion).

BMW Brand

BMW, which competes with Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen AG’s Audi in the premium-vehicle market, had sales of 80.4 billion euros in 2014 and delivered a record 2.12 million cars worldwide. Its brands include BMW, Mini and Rolls-Royce. Johanna Quandt and her two children held a combined 46.8 percent of the company.

“As an entrepreneur, you fulfilled the tasks that fell to you after the death of Herbert Quandt, in an unspectacular and even Prussian-like conscientious way,” her son, Stefan, said in a speech for her 80th birthday in 2006.

Johanna Quandt, who rarely spoke to the media while supporting journalists through her foundation, remained on the company’s supervisory board until she stepped down in 1997.

“I appeal to the people in my company, and not to the general public,” she was cited as saying in the Frankenpost newspaper in 2012.
In 2007, a television documentary aired about the family’s ties to the Nazi regime during World War II. Johanna Quandt’s father-in-law, Guenther Quandt, was contracted to make Mauser firearms and anti-aircraft missiles for the Third Reich’s war machine. In response to the broadcast, the family commissioned a Bonn-based history professor, Joachim Scholtyseck, to examine the extent of the involvement. The study showed that forced laborers were used in Quandt factories during the war.

Early Years

Johanna Bruhn was born on June 21, 1926, in Berlin to Wolfgang Bruhn and the former Marianne Rubner. Her father was an art historian.
After attending school in Potsdam and Berlin, she began an apprenticeship in medical technology, but her training was interrupted by the war. She found her first job as a banker’s secretary in Cologne before joining Herbert Quandt’s office in Bad Homburg, a spa town near Frankfurt, in the mid-1950s.

At the time, he and his half-brother, Harald Quandt, had just inherited a portfolio of about 200 companies after their father, Guenther Quandt, died in 1954. The holdings included the battery producer Varta AG; arms producer Deutsche Waffen- und Munitionsfabriken, which became Industrie-Werke Karlsruhe AG after the war; a stake in potash miner Wintershall AG; and shares in Stuttgart-based carmaker Daimler and BMW.

Family Life

Within a few years, Johanna Bruhn became Herbert’s personal assistant, with an increasing influence over his business decisions. They married in 1960 and had two children: Susanne in 1962 and Stefan in 1966.

In 1959, against the advice of his bankers, Herbert Quandt was swayed by employees and some smaller stakeholders to boost his stake in the almost-bankrupt BMW to 50 percent in order to fend off a takeover attempt by Daimler. He aimed to turn the company around with new models, such as the BMW 1500 “sporty sedan.” The rescue plan, implemented the year he married for a third time, saved the automaker from collapse.
In 1995, Johanna Quandt set up her own foundation, which supports young people training to become business journalists and awards a media prize each year. She also provided funding to help children with cancer, and financed cultural groups that staged art exhibitions. In 2012, she committed as much as 40 million euros over a 10-year period to a Berlin-based institute for health-care research.

“Johanna Quandt represents patronage in an exemplary way, without which a lot would no longer be possible,” Roland Koch, then premier in the German state of Hesse, said in 2009 when she was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

She is survived by her two children.

[gblansten]

Originally Posted by bimmerj

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...gul-dies-at-89

Great article.

[ciaranob]

Very interesting - to be honest I did not realize one family still had close to half the company's stock!

[bimmerj]

Originally Posted by ciaranob

Very interesting - to be honest I did not realize one family still had close to half the company's stock!

That surprised me too.

[GabeS]

amazing title.. wtf...

[Pavit]

Just saw this in news feed, sad and RIP:

http://fortune.com/2015/08/06/johann...w-dies-aged-89

Private, hands-off and a discreet broker of political and artistic patronage, Quandt was Germany’s 2nd richest woman, with a fortune estimated over $14 billion.

Johanna Quandt, the largest shareholder in luxury carmaker BMW AG and Germany’s second-richest woman, has died aged 89.

Quandt died peacefully at her home in Bad Homburg, just outside Frankfurt, on Monday, according to her foundation.

Born Johanna Bruhn into an art historian’s family in Berlin in 1926, her early life was disrupted by World War 2. After it, she became first the secretary, then (at the age of 34) the third wife, of industrialist Herbert Quandt. Quandt had built his stake in the Munich-based Bayerische Motoren-Werke AG when it was near bankruptcy in an effort to stop it being taken over by Stuttgart-based Daimler-Benz (the two are still bitter rivals today). Herbert had inherited a broad portfolio of industrial shareholdings from his father, inevitably including those who had contributed to Nazi Germany’s war effort. A TV documentary exposed the scale of those links (Quandt’s factories made firearms and anti-aircraft weapons, among other things), leading Johanna–belatedly in many people’s eyes–to commission a deeper investigation that confirmed the use of forced labor.

Herbert Quandt died in 1982, leaving a 47% stake in the carmaker divided between Johanna and their two children, Stefan and Susanne, who have been the family’s representatives on the board since Johanna retired in 1997. Bloomberg quoted a spokesman for Quandt Foundation, which oversaw the bulk of Johanna’s fortune, as saying that the stake will stay within the family, although he didn’t say how it would be administered in future.

Over the years, she was happy to leave the running of her company to a series of professional managers who rarely faltered in building value for their employer (the voting shares today are worth some $65 billion, and Quandt’s own fortune was estimated in 2014 at $11.8 billion by Forbes). In stark contrast to mass-market rival Volkswagen AG ( VLKAY -0.70% ) , BMW’s growth has been overwhelmingly organic, and acquisitions such as that of the Mini and Rolls Royce brands have been very much the exception.

Johanna overcame the somewhat tacky beginnings of her wealth to become the kind of patrician that German capitalists always pointed to as an example: sober, modest and extremely private (Der Spiegel reported that, when people asked if she were THE Frau Quandt, she would reply: “Ah yes, if only…” In a rare public event to mark her 80th birthday, her son Stefan had said that she really couldn’t understand why people were so interested in her.

From her position out of the public eye, she was a big donor both to Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, Germany’s biggest center-right party, and latterly to the smaller, more overtly pro-business Free Democrats (it didn’t save them from annihilation at the 2013 elections to the Bundestag, however). Her generous patronage of business journalism–including sponsorship of younger journalists and an annual prize–also ensured her a good measure of respect from Germany’s press throughout her life. In later life, however, she gave far more to the arts and to healthcare research.

[GOS7]

What a phenomenal legacy this woman has left behind. I'm also impressed and proud to say my favorite manufacturer is family owned!

[N54B30A]

My grandma had the opportunity to live with Johanna and her husband after they had acquired BMW. From what I heard they were extremely humble people who took her in and treated her like family. RIP

[leoloureiro]

R.I.P - We shall salute her devotion to the brand.

[raysspl]

Rest in Paradise. An undying devotion to the BMW brand, no doubt.

[BEMR]

May she rest in peace, thank you for all you did for an amazing company!

[bimmette]

Very interesting! Thanks for posting.

[Pure]

My sincere condolences to Suzanne Klatten and Stefan Quandt.
Susanne my support for you.
They must be strong to withstand the loss of their loved ones.
Mrs. Johanna Quandt was an important growth pillar BMW.
My father died two months ago and the only hope in life is to continue.
RIP.

[EnI]

Although not being an active member of Supervisory board since 1997, the late Frau Quandt had been concerned about & interested in the BMW Group future & long-term strategy till the very end of her days. She essentially lived for the company she co-owned. Her children (Stephan Quandt & Susanne Klatten neé Quandt - both active current members of BMW AG Supervisory board) have constantly reporting Frau Quandt's thoughts on the issues discussed at Supervisory Board issues since she was informed about all the major issues & decisions that were going on @ BMW.

Her late husband, Herbert Quandt, had been a very active shareholder in BMW AG. And when he died, Frau Quandt very bravely & successfully took his role in the companies hierarchy. Not many widows are able to do & achieve that.

And both her children are as strongly devoted to BMW (if not more!) as she & her husband were.

There's no need to say her BMW shares (16.7%) will now be inherited by her children, each getting half of them, making her daughter Susanne Klatten the richest person in Germany, surpassing Dieter Schwarz - the German retail mogul (Lidl, Kaufland).

The Quandt family have already been the richest German family (with total asset worth ~34 billion euros), and Susanne Klatten & Frau Johanna Quandt being #1 & #2 on the Germany's Richest Women list. Now Frau Klatten's advantage over the new #2 (current #3) on the list will be even bigger.

[messiry]

RIP, nice to know such family has almost half of BMW,,

[positiveions]

Johanna, thank you to you and your husband for saving a brand that was deemed as a failure.