Takeover attempt
Independence
since 1856
Our independence and the values associated with it have always been a guarantor of KWS’ success. A planned takeover threatened this foundation in the past, but we managed to fend it off.
Seed is the most important product at the beginning of the food chain. Seed is life and therefore incomparable. Developing new varieties that deliver good yields, are robust against pathogens and can be grown sustainably requires extensive and specialized know-how, a willingness to invest heavily, and often patience, too.
Many companies, including our competitors, mainly lack the latter quality, patience. If the envisaged objectives are not achieved quickly enough, the pressure from the often anonymous shareholders grows on the management to change something fundamentally in order to achieve quick wins. Change is not a bad thing per se, but developing new varieties demands foresight and continuity, even when a variety’s performance does not live up to expectations.
So it is good that KWS does not receive its directives on what it should or should not do from the head offices of multinational corporations in Europe or the U.S. Instead, families who have understood the business of plant breeding since the company was founded and families who pursue a long-term corporate policy decide together locally what course KWS should take. The resultant independence from outside interests enables KWS to follow a self-determined path and act in a sustainable, value-driven manner.
Because KWS was (and, of course, still is) a successful pearl among family-run seed companies, outside investors have always shown keen interest in taking over the company. As biotechnology grew in importance, almost all multinational seed and chemical companies knocked on KWS’ door at the end of the 1990s to negotiate a takeover. Südzucker AG, which already had a 24.9% stake, and AgrEvo GmbH (the successor to Hoechst AG following a merger with Schering AG), which had a 12% interest in KWS plus a three percent stake subject to special rules, tried a different tack.
In the sights of the corporations
On the basis of agreements dating from the 1980s with KWS and with Carl-Ernst Büchting as the main shareholder, Südzucker and AgrEvo endeavored to carry out a hostile takeover that had been planned from the beginning. That move was triggered by a planned transfer of three percent of KWS’ shares by KWS in accordance with the above-mentioned agreements to underpin a strategic cooperation. They were intended to go to Limagrain to consolidate the cooperation in North America begun in 2000 as part of the joint venture AgReliant. AgrEvo was contractually obligated to hand over this stake, but refused to do so because this three percent would ultimately have been necessary to enable a majority takeover of KWS.
KWS therefore initiated arbitration proceedings in 2001 to obtain the surrender of the three percent stake. At the same time, Südzucker sued Carl-Ernst Büchting, who had in the meantime transferred his KWS shares to his descendants and the AKB Foundation as part of his inheritance, as it was believed that Südzucker had a right of first refusal. If both arbitration proceedings had been won by Südzucker and Südzucker/AgrEvo respectively, the two companies would have achieved their goal of acquiring KWS. We know that things turned out differently and we can be glad about that for the reasons mentioned above.
Family shareholders retain their majority
All arbitration proceedings were ended in 2004. Bayer Crop Science (where the KWS shares originally held by AgrEvo had ended up in the meantime) and Südzucker had decided to shed all their shares after the arbitration proceedings had gone negatively from their point of view. That enabled the family shareholders to maintain and consolidate their majority and also to increase the proportion of KWS shares traded on the stock exchange.
Henning von der Ohe was entrusted by KWS with project management in the arbitration proceedings. In his view, they and the rejection of various “friendly” takeover requests spelled out how much the family shareholders stand behind this, their and our, KWS. “Without this commitment and ethos, especially on the part of Andreas Büchting and Arend Oetker, our company would have a very different face today, and would probably have been absorbed into an agrochemical group and disappeared as an independent entity,” says Henning von der Ohe.
Since things did not turn out that way, KWS has an excellent foundation – one that is hard to find anywhere else in the seed world – on which it can continue to grow successfully and seed the future in a self-determined and sustainable manner. It is good to know that the successor generation of family shareholders share the same ethos as the founding fathers of the family pool. |
© KWS SAAT SE & Co. KGaA 2025
