By Ludwig Burger and Friederike Heine
FRANKFURT, Aug 24 (Reuters) – German investor Klaus-Michael Kuehne, the controlling shareholder of Swiss logistics group Kuehne + Nagel, has died aged 89, the company said on Monday.
Kuehne, the grandson of company co-founder August Kuehne, also held major stakes in German groups Lufthansa, Hapag-Lloyd and chemicals trade group Brenntag as well as bus and train services operator Flix.
A dominant figure in global shipping and logistics, he transformed Kuehne + Nagel from a family freight forwarder into one of the world’s largest logistics groups and amassed a fortune that made him one of Germany’s richest investors.
His holdings are worth more than $44.2 billion, according to Forbes.
He became CEO of Kuehne and Nagel in 1975 and was the chairman of its board of directors between 1992 and 2011.
With strong family ties to northern Germany, Kuehne formed a group of investors that agreed to buy Hapag-Lloyd’s Hamburg-based container shipping business from TUI in 2008 to prevent it from getting folded into a global rival.
A commanding presence among German family investors, he later acquired 20% of the voting rights in German flagship carrier Lufthansa Group.
(Reporting by Ludwig Burger and Friederike Heine; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
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