Production hall for heat pumps at Viessmann in Allendorf (Eder)
Image: dpa
Anyone who complains that Viessmann is selling its heat pump business to America needs to take a good look at it. German investors are too seldom willing to finance entrepreneurial risks.
The north Hessian specialist for heat pumps, Viessmann, is sold to America. Now, of all times, when everyone is supposed to equip themselves with heat pumps. The outcry is great. Important future technology is leaving the country. Some even demand that the Viessmann family be forbidden from doing so.
But the outcry comes too late. The sell-off has long since happened in key parts of the corporate landscape. Who determines the fate of the largest German companies? In the tables for the Dax share index regularly prepared by the consulting company EY, the housing company Vonovia is at the top with 86 percent foreign shareholders, ahead of the German Stock Exchange (80 percent), the engine manufacturer MTU (80), Adidas (71), Siemens (69) and so on . Mercedes, RWE, Bayer, Allianz, SAP, Munich Re, Deutsche Post: all with foreign majority shareholders.