Dr. Axel Th. Simon to retire
After more than 30 years with Bitburger Brewery, Dr Axel Simon bid his farewell.
As he will be turning 64 in the summer, Dr Axel Th. Simon, Chairman of the Bitburger Holding and one of its shareholders, announced his retirement at the end of May 2007. On 1 January 2007 Dr Simon had already made Jan Niewodniczanski, a 7th generation family stakeholder, his successor as technical director of Germany’s third largest brewing group with five breweries scattered all over the country.
Although Dr Simon also has had to relinquish his seat on the board, this will not go to an outsider but to another family member, Matthäus Niewodniczanski. Dr Simon said that he was “very proud that the family has been engaged in the running of the brewery for seven generations now.”
Dr Simon joined Bitburger Brewery in 1972 after having studied brewing technology at the university of Berlin and economics at the university of Munich. In 1975 he became Technical Director, succeeding his uncle Dr. Hanns Simon. During his time as Technical Director, Bitburger Brewery became one of the most technically advanced breweries in the world. In 1990 Dr Simon built his own pilot plant, a first in Germany, and six years later a waste water treatment plant which was received an award for high environmental standards.
It was his brother-in-law, Dr Michael Dietzsch, who orchestrated the biggest takeover coup in Bitburger’s history when he acquired the König and Licher breweries from Carlsberg in 2004. But Dr Simon has also had a say in boardroom manoeuvres: He initiated the purchase of the former eastern German black beer brewery Köstritzer Schwarzbierbrauerei in Thuringia in 1991, thus rescuing it from an almost-certain closure.
