No doubt one of Europe’s ultimate family-owned companies would possibly maybe maybe well be among its most taciturn
THE REIMANNS are as fabulously rich as they are faceless. On turning 18, each of Albert Reimann’s nine kids signed a codex, pledging to have out of Benckiser, the family chemicals alternate in Ludwigshafen, Germany, and never show veil their face in public. Reimann died in 1984, leaving each of his offspring with 11.1% of his firm. Inspiring luck finding a photo of any of them, including the five who have sold their stakes in the family self-discipline. Its public face is Peter Harf, a Harvard-trained supervisor whom Albert employed in 1981 as an adviser. A restless kind, with a tantalizing mind and a abhor of tantalizing suits, which he spurns for jeans and vivid shirts, Mr Harf transformed Benckiser from a medium-sized manufacturer conventional of Germany’s Mittelstand correct into a global client-items powerhouse overseeing running companies rate some $120bn.
JAB Maintaining, because the Luxembourg-basically based fully neighborhood was renamed in 2012 in honour of its founder, Johann Adam Benckiser, is as anonymous as its digicam-anxious owners. Its sources are anything however. Having sold off the closing of its stake in Reckitt Benckiser, a London-listed client-items neighborhood, in 2019, JAB has centered on three principal alternate lines. The first two revolve round caffeine and carbs. Over time JAB has snapped up purveyors of espresso (esteem Keurig and Jacobs) and areas to use it (Peet’s Espresso and Pret A Manger, among others), as successfully as makers of sugary drinks (Dr Pepper) and sellers of snacks (such as Krispy Kreme Doughnuts and Panera Bread). These operations accounted for 85% of JAB Maintaining’s estimated €25bn portfolio in 2019.
Many of the relaxation sat in magnificence. In 1992 Mr Harf orchestrated JAB’s opt of Coty, a maker of physique spray, from Pfizer, an American drugmaker, for $440m. Coty was listed in Contemporary York in 2013, and in 2016 Mr Harf added to it 41 magnificence brands, including Wella (shampoo), Max Factor and Covergirl (assemble-up), supplied from Procter & Gamble (P&G), an American big, for $12bn.
Alongside JAB Maintaining, which manages the Reimanns’ money (and that of Mr Harf, whom they contend with nearly esteem a family member) is a more in-depth sister preserving, JAB Consumer Fund (JCF), with investments in the identical neighborhood of companies. It was prepare in 2014 with cash from other prosperous families, including the Peugeots, a French carmaking clan, and Colombia’s Santo Domingo beer dynasty.JCF adds complexity to the federation, which contains quite a lot of intermediate preserving companies co-owned by JAB and JCF that in turn have an eye on underlying running sources. However it without a doubt permits the structure to contend with extra debt, which Mr Harf has historical to amplify the empire with deals esteem the $19bn opt of Dr Pepper Snapple in 2018. The two vehicles are flee collectively by Mr Harf and Olivier Goudet, a venerable finance chief at Mars, a big American confectioner (which can maybe well be family-owned). An admirer of Warren Buffett, Mr Harf likes to consult with the JAB–JCF as Benckiser Hathaway.
Love the valuable American investor’s conglomerate, JAB favours long-term bets on companies which can maybe well maybe be easy to love. What sets it other than Berkshire Hathaway, and quite a lot of family offices, is a spotlight on about a mighty sources. Essentially basically based fully on Heart-broken’s, a credit rating-rating company, 96% of JAB Maintaining’s funds had been in the three ultimate closing one year (leer chart). Investor AB, one other expansive and intricate investment fund, controlled by Sweden’s Wallenberg clan, has 37% of its portfolio in its high three sources. Mr Harf wants JAB Maintaining to maintain a stake of 30-40% in each portfolio company, so that although JCF’s backers exit, the Reimanns would have the ear of the running companies’ CEOs.
Such focus is a boon when issues are going successfully, as they’ve been with the espresso alternate, which Mr Goudet envisaged as a rival to Switzerland’s Nestlé. Defying the covid-19 pandemic, JAB listed 16.5% of shares in JDE Peet’s, the of a merger between Jacobs Douwe Egberts and Peet’s Espresso, on the pause of Would possibly well in Amsterdam. Out of ten “tidy investors”, nine warned Mr Harf to wait with the IPO, he says. Within the match, the offering raised a caffeinated €2.25bn, making it Europe’s ultimate IPO this one year and valuing the company at €15.6bn. The part designate surged by 15% on the principle day of trading. The outlook for JAB’s other cafés, starved of consumers amid pandemic lockdowns, would possibly maybe maybe well additionally purple meat up as economies reopen.
The identical can’t obviously be talked about of the cosmetics arm. Mr Harf would possibly maybe maybe well additionally have overpaid for P&G’s brands and folding them into Coty has proved tricky. Coty’s market capitalisation has shriveled by bigger than 80% since 2016, to $3.7bn. In Would possibly well KKR injected €750m into the debt-encumbered alternate, which will at closing give the non-public-equity company a 60% stake in a skilled-magnificence company to be hived off from Coty. Mr Harf himself will flee the consumer operation. On June 1st he took over as Coty’s CEO after it went via four chief executives in five years, to trim up what he calls “the ultimate blemish on my vest”.
“Total Mr Harf has accomplished successfully for the Reimanns,” says Jean-Philippe Bertschy at Vontobel, a Swiss bank. No topic Coty’s pallid file, JAB investor returns have averaged 15% a one year since 2012. However Mr Bertschy cautions JAB in opposition to extra smash-neck acquisitions. Outdated ones provoked the departure closing one year of JAB Maintaining’s chairman, Bart Becht, who reportedly surrender after failing to persuade the opposite partners to chop lend a hand growth and focal point as a replacement on running the companies below their wings better.
Mr Harf will now strive to fabricate ethical that. The spry 74-one year-historical plans to overhaul Coty, initiating with distribution. That is potentially no longer easy. Cosmetics is chop-throat and Coty must salvage a explain section between the 2 giants of the alternate, L’Oréal and Estée Lauder, and stylish “indie” brands. No longer lower than Mr Harf has quite a lot of espresso to lend a hand him going. ?
This article appeared in the Enterprise part of the print edition below the headline “The Reimann hypothesis”
