Fundamentals of the KION Group

Management and control

At the Annual General Meeting on 12 May 2015, Birgit Behrendt and Xu Ping were elected as new members of the Supervisory Board for the period up to the 2017 Annual General Meeting. They had both been temporarily appointed to the Supervisory Board with effect from 1 January 2015 following the departure of Silke Scheiber and Dr Martin Hintze from the Supervisory Board on 31 December 2014. At its meeting on 25 June 2015, the Company’s Supervisory Board appointed Dr Eike Böhm as a further ordinary member of the Executive Board of KION GROUP AG with effect from 1 August 2015. Dr Böhm will take on the new role of Chief Technology Officer (CTO) with groupwide responsibility for research and development (R&D), quality and purchasing. Wolfgang Faden has been a shareholder representative on the Supervisory Board of KION GROUP AG since 1 August 2015. Johannes Huth stepped down from the Supervisory Board with effect from 31 July 2015. There were no other changes to the membership of the Executive Board and Supervisory Board in the second quarter.

Strategy of the KION Group

With its Strategy 2020, the KION Group aims to close the gap with its biggest competitor in terms of size and market penetration and, at the same time, to further strengthen its position as the most profitable supplier in the material handling industry. To entrench this position, the KION Group aims to improve its EBIT margin so that it is permanently in the double-digit range – a target that remains unchanged in communications since the IPO. In addition, yet more efficient use of capital should help the KION Group to remain highly profitable, even in the event of any future economic crises. To this end, the KION Group is building on its successful multi-brand approach underpinned by a comprehensive modular and platform strategy, strengthening its presence in key growth markets, such as China and the United States, and expanding its already very robust service business.

The KION Group continued to forge ahead with this strategy in the reporting period; including in May agreeing to acquire Egemin Automation, a specialist in logistics automation. This new, seventh brand for the KION Group will add an even more comprehensive range of automated logistics solutions to the Group’s portfolio. Such solutions are set to become hugely important with the arrival of Industry 4.0. From a technological perspective, the KION Group significantly improved its position as a result of enhancements to lithium-ion batteries, the development of new truck models based on Linde’s and Baoli’s global platforms and an alliance between Linde and French robotics specialist Balyo. At the same time, the KION Group’s investment in its core Linde and STILL plants in Aschaffenburg and Hamburg and the construction of a new factory in the Czech Republic are generating lasting increases in efficiency and competitiveness.

Further details on the Strategy 2020 can be found in the 2014 group management report. The company profile and description of the management system in that report also continue to apply without change.

The segments and their products and services

The subsidiary KION India (formerly Voltas Material Handling Pvt. Ltd.) was integrated into the LMH segment with effect from 1 January 2015. Previously the entity was in the Other segment. This segment now comprises only holding companies and service companies that provide cross-segment services such as IT and logistics.