Paulaner poaches former InBev executive
Mr Tobias joined Beck’s in 1995 as Key Account Manager when Beck’s was still privately owned. He rose through the ranks to become Business Unit President for InBev Germany, Switzerland and Austria in 2006. That he left the brewer only one year later shows that even he was unable to deliver the goods the new Brazilian-Belgian owners wanted: high profit margins.
Although InBev’s Germany breweries (Beck’s, Diebels, Gilde, Hasseröder, and Spaten-Löwenbräu) are more profitable than most German breweries, their EBITDA of reportedly 20 percent was considered not good enough. We should not forget that those were the years when InBev issued the dictum: “from biggest to best”.
When Mr Tobias became President of InBev Germany, he was the fourth man in the driver’s seat in only three years. InBev’s revolving doors turned very quickly in those days with top executives all leaving in a huff. Even Mr Tobias could not placate his board with his performance, margin-wise. Like his predecessors, he was chided repeatedly: “You just have to try harder”.
His next position as General Manager of frozen foods company Iglo took market observers by surprise. If working for margin-obsessed InBev was tough, working for Iglo was even tougher.
In August 2006 the consumer goods company Unilever had sold most of its European frozen foods unit Birds Eye (including Iglo) to private equity house Permira for EUR 1.73 billion. The reason? Unilever wanted to focus on more profitable brands.
At Iglo Mr Tobias must have honed his skills of improving margins but after two years, Mr Tobias apparently thought it was time to return to the beer business.
Incidentally, Mr Tobias is the second Beck’s man to hold a top position at Brau Holding International. Axel Meermann, who was Beck’s Director of Marketing, joined Paulaner in 1999. He was forced to resign as Managing Director in 2003. In retrospect, Mr Meermann lasted out longer at Brau Holding International than his several successors.
Which proves to show why Germany’s CEOs have a much shorter average tenure than their North American counterparts. According to the study “Global CEO Succession 2008“ by Booz & Company, which came out in May 2009, North American CEOs had an average tenure of 7.9 years, whilst German CEOs stayed for 5.5 years only.
