Fundamentals of the KION Group

Management and control

With effect from 15 January 2015 Bert-Jan Knoef and Theodor Maurer stepped down as members of the KION Group’s Executive Board. At the same time, Gordon Riske, in addition to his role as KION Group CEO, took over as CEO of both the Linde Material Handling GmbH and the STILL GmbH brand companies and assumed responsibility for quality, while CFO Dr Thomas Toepfer became responsible for facility management / health, safety & environment (HSE) and logistics / Urban.

With effect from 1 January 2015 Silke Scheiber and Dr Martin Hintze stepped down from the Supervisory Board. Birgit A. Behrendt and Xu Ping were appointed to the Supervisory Board in their place. As a result of their appointments the Supervisory Board now has three female members.

Strategy of the KION Group

The KION Group continued as planned with the implementation of its Strategy 2020 in the first quarter of 2015. Under this strategy, the Company aims to leverage its strong global position and cross-brand synergies even more effectively and to close the gap on the global market leader by 2020. To this end, the KION Group is focusing on its successful multi-brand approach underpinned by a comprehensive modular and platform strategy, on expanding its presence in key markets with growth potential, such as China and the United States, and on expanding its already very robust service business. Furthermore, in order to entrench its position as the most profitable supplier in the market, the KION Group aims to improve its EBIT margin so that it is permanently in the double-digit range – a target that was stated in the 2014 annual report and that remains unchanged in communications since the IPO. To achieve this target, greater efforts are being made to become even more competitive, particularly in the KION Group’s home market of Europe. Further details on the Strategy 2020 can be found in the 2014 group management report. There has been no change to the information contained in this report regarding the Company and its management system.

The segments and their products and services

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