Ex-CEO brings charges against Warsteiner’s owner
After talks over a severance payment have failed, Warsteiner’s former CEO, Gustavo Möller Hergt has brought charges of false statement against Albert Cramer, the owner of Warsteiner Brewery in an effort, obviously, to force Mr Cramer back to the negotiating table.
It’s an old story: son or daughter joins family company and the CEO, who thought he ran the company successfully, soon finds himself out in the street. Something like that must have happened to Gustavo Möller-Hergt, 46, the flamboyant CEO of Warsteiner Brewery. After a meteoric 15 year long rise to the top of Germany’s eighth largest brewery, Dr Möller-Hergt was shown the door last September on charges of irregularities at Warsteiner’s subsidiaries in Argentina and Cameroon.
A court has already decided that the sacking of Dr Möller-Hergt on these grounds cannot be upheld. Mr Cramer, 64, and his daughter Catharina, 30, who both act as Warsteiner’s managing directors, nevertheless decided to appeal.
Apparently, they do not want to pay Dr Möller-Hergt any compensation for his severed contract that was to run until 2012. Dr Möller-Hergt’s monthly salary came to EUR 50,000, it was reported.
An out-of-court settlement has been made impossible by Mr Cramer’s stubbornness. That’s why Uwe Simdorn, the lawyer representing the ex-CEO, has decided to file charges against Mr Cramer. The court is expected to hear these charges in the autumn.
The high-profile nature of the case is not doing Warsteiner any good. With the PR manager having left too there is no one left to distract the attention of tabloid media. During the first six months of 2008 the Warsteiner Group reported a sales increase of 4.8 percent to 3.14 million hl. However, this increase results from the integration of the Herforder brewery which Warsteiner bought last year.
Warsteiner brewery, on the other hand, has continued its downward course as concerns volume sold. Attributing the decline to the introduction of the ban on smoking in German pubs, Warsteiner reported a drop of 6.4 percent in beer sales.
In effect, Warsteiner’s beer output has more than halved over the past decade or so to about 3 million hl now.
While the court case drags on, Dr Möller-Hergt has decided to lie low. It has been rumoured that he is keen on getting a job in academia. At the university of Weihenstephan one of the chairs in brewing science will be vacant soon. Although Dr Möller-Hergt was not on the first short-list, he still stands some chances as the search committee apparently was not happy with the turn-out of the first search and has decided to launch another. Perhaps Dr Möller-Hergt will get lucky the second time round.
