The story
The families had been long term shareholders of Tchibo Group. Günter Herz took over the leadership of the group from his father in 1965. Since then Tchibo expanded from some DM 50m turnover to almost €9.5bn on a pro forma consolidated basis.
Tchibo Frischröst GmbH, the original coffee business innovated a non-food concept with weekly changing assortments that it introduced in its 1300 store retail chain. It also expanded through an innovative concession depot concept to some 25,000 point of sale in Germany, Austria and Switzerland growing its total business to some €3.9bn turnover in 2003. In 1997 Tchibo acquired its key competitor Eduscho, integrated the logistics and retail operations and included the Eduscho coffee brand in its coffee portfolio.
In 1977 Tchibo bought a 25% stake in publicly listed Beiersdorf AG. At the time Beiersdorf achieved a turnover of some € 400m from its Nivea, Tesa and Hansaplast brands. During the 80s Nivea was repositioned from a cream brand to a personal care brand and started on a global expansion. 25 years later Nivea has become the largest personal care brand globally and Beiersdorf has grown to almost € 5bn in sales.
Finally in 1980 the group acquired a stake in the European cigarette company Reemtsma. That stake was increased over the years to a 76% holding and Reemtsma turnover grew from €1.5bn in 1980 to €8.5bn in 2002. 21 years after the first investment, Tchibo decided to sell its stake to Imperial Tobacco.
In 2002 Günter Herz stepped down as CEO of the group following a shift in the supervisory board of the group. About a year later Günter and Daniela decided to sell their stakes in Tchibo Group to their siblings and set up Mayfair as a new family holding.
From Wikipedia’s article on Mayfair Vermögensverwaltung, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5