For the third time in five years, the Franconian auto parts supplier Brose a new boss. As of September 1, Philipp Schramm is to take over the management of the manufacturer of vehicle doors and seats on an interim basis, as announced by Brose in Coburg. The 43-year-old, who came from the automotive supplier Webasto three years ago, has been Vice President of Brose since 2021 and replaces Ulrich Schrickel (57). Schrickel asked for his contract as CEO to be terminated. The company said the shareholders and advisory board would “regret” the decision.
The former Bosch manager Schrickel has been in office since the beginning of 2020. Sales were under his aegis thanks in part to the consolidation of a joint venture with Volkswagen-Subsidiary Sitec increased to 7.5 billion euros in 2022. Recently, however, the family companies have openly criticized the return on sales of only 1.1 percent.
Schramm has “the unrestricted support of the shareholders and the advisory board in the task of getting the family company Brose back on the road to success in difficult times, in addition to his commercial responsibility,” the statement said.
In addition to Schrickel, Head of Human Resources Olaf Gelhausen will also be replaced, and his successor Bernhard Blauth (52) will come from Knorr- Bremse. Blauth was happy at Linkedin to switch to a “great company”.
Internally, however, the mood at Brose has recently been anything but good. In mid-April, the shareholders around Patriarch Michael Stoschek (75) caused a scandal with an official letter. In the past fiscal year, “the insufficient return” no longer allowed the family business to finance itself for the first time, it said. “Therefore, bank loans had to be taken out on a considerable scale.”
Shareholders demand “above-average performance”
Stoschek and Co. obviously did not attribute the problems solely to the difficult overall economic situation and the many challenges that automotive suppliers are struggling with. Instead, the owners shrugged off the workforce. “Shareholders, the advisory board and management are also concerned about the motivation of the workforce, which has now grown to more than 31,000 employees at 69 locations in 25 countries. It is reflected in an extraordinarily high fluctuation,” the letter said.
Brose employs almost a third of its employees in Germany, which is associated with cost disadvantages. These could be compensated “only by an above-average performance”. The shareholders and the advisory board had therefore asked the management “to significantly streamline the decision-making processes and the organizational structure”.
A few days later, the shareholders half-heartedly backtracked in a further statement. They “wanted to build trust” by addressing problems openly. We regret the presentation in different media. Brose would do “everything possible” “to ensure that our employees worldwide are satisfied with their work, their leadership and their remuneration,” it said. Now, once again, a new group at the top can take care of that.