KHS announces management shake-up

The present Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Roland Flach, who has held the position since February 2009, will be retiring at the end of March and will be replaced by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Matthias Niemeyer.

The new CEO has been a member of the KHS Executive Management Board since September 2009 as head of the Technology division. In his new role, the 43-year old will continue to be in charge of the Technology division in addition to taking on the duties and responsibilities of CEO.

KHS has also announced that the present Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Burkhard Becker will be leaving his post at the end January to become the new CFO of Salzgitter Group, which owns KHS through its technology subsidiary Klöckner-Werke.

Anke Fischer, up to now head of central controlling of Salzgitter, has been appointed as the new CFO at KHS and therefore joins the Executive Management Board.

Another new addition to the Board is Marc Hartmann who will join in April. Currently chief representative of KHS, Hartmann will be responsible for project management as well as process and quality management.

Alongside the new members the five person board Georg Michels will remain as head of sales and Prof. E.h. Dr.-Ing. Johann Grabenweger as head of production.

KHS, which has annual sales of around €750m, manufactures machines for making, filling and packaging bottles. For the nine months to September 30 2010, Klöckner-Werke said KHS had seen sales rise 26.5 per cent to €621.2m following the sharp drop-off in demand in 2009.

For the same period KHS made an EBIT loss of €15.6m due to poor pricing quality for individual machines and complete lines.