“Mrs. Quandt was just nice” – Automotive Week

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Bad Homburg in numerous newspapers and on many websites the defunct BMW-major shareholder Johanna Quandt has been recognized – as an entrepreneur as well as a founder. The Automobile week provides an overview.

Handelsblatt

Admired for her modesty, respected for her social commitment. And especially revered as a businesswoman for their courage and foresight. Johanna Quandt was as far more than just the heiress to a billion empire.

Johanna Maria Quandt, so her full name, has always been the great lady in the background. Public skating exhibition, representation tasks or even the red carpet you were always strange. Instead, they would rather preferred the local estate on the edge of the Bad Homburg residential district.

BBC

When she spoke, the humility was felt to which they excelled all their lives , The term “billionaire” likely to have remained an abstraction for them. He was always connected to them in any event, with the obligation that out of the assets also meaningful may arise. And in the Quandt family which is indeed meant also in the social sense, the concern is and must be understood but enterprising especially.

Süddeutsche

The spirit of Johanna Quandt is still present at BMW, he will remain so for a long time. It is this unpretentious, this reticence that she radiated, and that made them strong. Who is too loud, who wants to attract attention primarily or plays in the foreground, which has no future. In a world in which keep many people industrialists and their managers for lifted, arrogant and unworldly, she lived that simple occurrence and success go together perfectly.

In the nineties, the group was back on the edge of the abyss , BMW had bought in 1994 the British carmaker Rover and it would be nearly basis. Johanna Quandt has watched the adventure. That was a mistake. But at BMW, they expect the major shareholder on high that they remained calm, when things got serious and the competitors already prematurely rejoiced to be able to buy the store soon cheap. Johanna Quandt assured they stand by the company. Their share will not be sold. Since then, the Quandt family is regarded as a model for long-term strategy in times of shareholder value, from the hustle and quarterly horizons.

Ferdinand Piëch would never have occurred to me to ask if he could visit a stand of VW. His visits were a bit frightening. No speck of dust could interfere on a fender. It was different with Johanna Quandt. Did she like to look at an exhibition the latest models from BMW, they reported previously properly at

BMW Johanna Quandt was who was also a great benefactor, respected and admired, even revered -. But not feared. As the longtime CEO and chairman Eberhard von Kuenheim, even a legendary figure of BMW history, was adopted in 1999 and Johanna Quandt in the General Meeting was appreciative words for the aristocrats, was the then 71-year-old on the front row in the hall, embarrassed as a schoolboy who gets praise from the teacher.

The World

But Johanna Quandt was not just the shy widow of industrialist Herbert Quandt and BMW control arm, as the it is usually described. She was right, quite approachable and open-minded, and she was always there when important decisions at BMW queuing -. To the most discreet to draw from the strings behind the scenes

The success of the Bavarian Motor Works, which the world . are a measure of the automotive industry, is without the work of Herbert Quandt and his wife Johanna inconceivable

As a writer on she turned, she sent word: “to occur, the interest of Mrs. Quandt, in a book, tends to zero. “

” Mrs. Quandt was just nice, you had to like it. And that’s when people this league really not self-evident, “says a BMW manager about the major shareholder.

The fact that the major shareholder family, led by Johanna Quandt, can react extremely sensitively, if one sees untouched as the owner’s rights, shows her speech to the Herbert Quandt Media Prize 2003, when she found the topic of managers’ salaries clear words: “I think we want their purchases away any American conditions … But I strongly doubt that legal provisions are helpful in this matter. It is and remains a regulatory indictment, to want to combat undesirable developments with the Code. “

Compiled by Stefan Wimmelbücker