CC Nielsen, entrepreneur and Chairman of Micro Matic (1946-2018)

Some thoughts on what makes an entrepreneur. It is fashionable to glamorize entrepreneurs. Business schools toast their erstwhile nerdy alumni who broke the rules and changed the world. Politicians praise them as shining examples for their country’s can-do business environment. Glossy magazines drool over their lifestyle of private planes, big piles in the countryside and arm-candy girlfriends. However, despite best efforts, entrepreneurs are born not made and their lives are often as exciting as cold porridge.

This probably holds true for the late Danish entrepreneur Carl Christian “CC” Nielsen too, who was Managing Director of Micro Matic until 2005 and later its Chairman. He was not to the manor born to become a business leader, who would grow Micro Matic into a global company, best known for its draught beer dispense systems with a turnover in excess of EUR 180 million and 1,000 employees. Ironically, he was born at the manor house Ravnholt in Denmark. But that was accidental. His father was employed there as a gardener.

Again, it was only by sheer coincidence that, after grammar school, vocational training at a seed company, a BSc in Economics and compulsory military service, he job-hopped from a building construction company to Micro Matic. The year was 1971 and he was 26 when he became an accountant at Micro Matic, which had been founded in 1953 as a modest local industrial blacksmith in Odense. It had since switched to producing components for draught beer dispense.

Call it fate or chance, in 1973 he met Svend Aage Nielsen – same name but not related – at Micro Matic and the two became not only colleagues but friends and life-long business partners. To their surprise, in 1974 the then owner of the firm, Bror Kruuse, wanted out and suggested a management buy-out and gave the two Nielsens, plus three of their colleagues, 24 hours to take to make up their minds if they wanted to accept the offer. Guess what, they jumped at the opportunity. Such were the days. You did things but rarely stopped to examine how or why you did them.

In 1981 CC and Svend-Aage found themselves the sole owners of Micro Matic and have jointly managed the firm for another 37 years. These days business gurus tell their followers that the best way to avoid the loneliness of the job is to found a company with a friend. As anyone familiar with the story of Facebook will know, this frequently leads to quarrels about power, titles or money.

CC and Svend-Aage must have had their moments. Yet, as co-owners and a management team, they functioned exceptionally well, most obviously because they split responsibilities according to talents early on. CC would look after sales while Svend-Aage was in charge of production.

Never shying away from risks, in the 1980s, the two embarked on an internationalisation course. They established Micro Matic Germany and Micro Matic Luxembourg in 1983, acquired the company Draft Systems in the US in 1988 (since renamed Micro Matic USA), plus a host of others in order to build a conglomerate.

In those days, conglomerates were the flavour of the month with investors and the two knew they had to comply if they wanted to collect funds from outside investors without letting go of power. In 1985 Micro Matic was listed on the Danish stock market.

In the 1990s and 2000s, as if unfazed by political, economic and cultural challenges, the two spread their wings even further and established a subsidiary in China (1994) and set up a production unit in Lithuania (2004) as they went on to snap up more companies.

However, at the turn of the century, they took a momentous decision. They de-listed Micro Matic from the stock market in 2000 by acquiring all outstanding shares. Many years ago, I asked CC why he had taken his company private again. He told me that the stock market had undervalued his company, deeming it too small, too unfocused (conglomerates had gone out of fashion) and too Old Economy (it was not into IT). Therefore, the risks associated with outside shareholders had become incalculable. The share buy-back amounted to USD 140 million and hiked the firm’s interest payments significantly.

In 2005 CC retired from his executive position to become Micro Matic’s Chairman. Although he refrained from meddling in day-to-day management, he still made sure that the company he built together with Svend-Aage adjusted to new realities. Conglomerates may have had their benefits, such as evening out bumpy business cycles and securing overall profitability, as he never failed to point out, but he saw that the game had changed to single play firms.

Together with management he instigated Micro Matic’s switch to a company focused on beverages exclusively, which meant disposing several non-core companies, while buying others that fitted the bill. The change in strategy was certainly helped by the surge in number of craft brewers which gave Micro Matic’s business a veritable boost.

In good time, CC and Svend-Aage also drew up a special design for the future of the Group to secure it as a family-owned firm and based in Odense. In particular, they wanted to make sure that it cannot be sold to a capital fund because they feared it would mean that the company disappeared from Odense and jobs that they had striven so hard to maintain would be lost.

Instead of taking to playing golf, CC spent his free time giving back to the community. He joined many boards and projects designed to develop Funen (the island on which Odense is located) and southern Denmark both economically and socially, thereby sharing his business skills acquired during a long career as an entrepreneur.

If CC’s life can be taken as exemplary, it underscores that entrepreneurs have many skills. They will take risks but they will also generously give back. Entrepreneurs are people who find ways round obstacles and take the long view. That’s why they persevere.

CC Nielsen passed away, aged 71, on 17 March 2018 after a sudden illness. In July, Micro Matic released a long and dignified obituary in its inhouse magazine, which honours the man and his achievements.