2023 Author: Eric Donovan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-21 15:44
TÜV Süd and TÜV Nord will continue to operate as independent companies. A merger would ultimately have become too costly.
The planned merger of TÜV Süd and TÜV Nord has surprisingly failed. The two companies announced on Monday in Munich and Hanover that the talks about a corporate merger would not be continued and that they would remain independent. Analyzes of the competitive conditions had shown that it was possible to react faster and more flexibly to market requirements independently of one another than in a large network, it was said to explain. "A merger of the two companies would have meant considerable integration effort and would therefore also have tied up operational capacities for a long time," said the heads of TÜV Süd and TÜV Nord, Axel Stepken and Guido Rettig.
Surprising U-turn
Last week, TÜV Süd had announced that the schedule for the merger was in place and that the merger should be sealed by the beginning of September at the latest. With this step, the company wanted to prepare for the time after the fall of the last monopoly in the industrial testing business. Competitor Dekra had already announced that it would then attack across the board.
The merger should have created the world's second largest company in the industry with 18,000 employees and sales of around 1.8 billion euros. The TÜV is known to the general public for the main inspections of vehicles, but the testing services also extend to power plants, elevators, household appliances and toys. After the end of the talks, they want to develop the services independently and pursue separate strategies, the companies said. Project-related cooperation in individual work areas should, however, be continued.
Opposing concepts
Both companies announced their merger plans at the end of March. Shortly afterwards there was upset behind the scenes. The background was evidently a statement by the former TÜV Süd boss Peter Hupfer about the comparatively better return of TÜV Süd. The cancellation of the merger had "absolutely nothing to do with this dispute," said a TÜV Süd spokesman on Monday. "Those were irritations in between" that had long been cleared up. Rather, it was found that the market is subject to rapid change. Last week it became apparent that a decision would be made against the merger. Now TÜV Süd wants to concentrate on further internationalization. The focus is on the certification of management systems and products.
A spokesman for TÜV Nord said that both companies are well positioned internationally. The result of the negotiations was that you could grow and react faster separately than in a network. Antitrust issues also played a role, for example the high requirements to be expected in the event of a merger. (dpa)
