Hawesko : Bernd G. Siebdrat to step down from the Hawesko management board at the end of the year

Bernd G. Siebdrat to step down from the Hawesko management board at the end of the year

Hamburg, 18 December 2017. Hawesko Holding AG (HAW GR, HAWG.DE, DE0006042708) announced today that Bernd G. Siebdrat will resign from the management board with effect from 31 December 2017 as planned. Siebdrat joined the management board in 2008 and has been responsible for the B2B brand unit, which guides the wholesale activities of the Group. Thorsten Hermelink will take over responsibility for the brand unit in the management board. Thus, in the future the Hawesko management board will consist of the four members Thorsten Hermelink (chief executive officer and head of the B2B brand unit), Alexander Borwitzky (head of the omnichannel brand unit), Raimund Hackenberger (chief financial officer) and Nikolas von Haugwitz (head of the digital brand unit). After his withdrawal from the daily operations of the B2B brand units, Siebdrat will remain the chairman of the advisory board of Wein Service Bonn GmbH (the successor to Wein Wolf Holding GmbH) and supervise comprehensive projects for Hawesko Holding AG as well.

Bernd G. Siebdrat can look back on a long and successful career in the wine industry. Together with a business partner, he founded the predecessor to Wein Wolf in the late 1970s, and in the following years he built Wein Wolf into one of the leading distributors for ultra-premium wines in Germany. In 1999 the Wein Wolf Group experienced further growth when Hawesko Holding AG acquired a majority interest in the company, and the Hawesko Group also benefited from its new subsidiary. Siebdrat was the managing director of the Wein Wolf Group until the end of 2016. In 2008 he was appointed to the management board of Hawesko Holding AG with responsibility for the wholesale/distribution segment (now the B2B brand unit). In the current fiscal year, the brand unit is expected to achieve sales of € 185 million and employ 260 people.

As the chairman of the advisory board of Wein Wolf, Siebdrat intends to focus on actively supporting the generational change in the B2B brand unit over the next four years: 'The past several years in the management board headed by Thorsten Hermelink have been both demanding and successful, have forged us together and are an excellent basis to continue the constructive teamwork on various projects. I am enthusiastic about my role as 'elder statesman' and look forward to contributing my experience into an ambitious younger team. I've initiated this further step in my own personal development and am grateful for the opportunity to do it. The majority interest of Hawesko Holding in the Wein Wolf Group has been a stroke of luck for everyone involved. It has enabled me personally not only to work with Alexander Margaritoff until 2015 but also to get to know entrepreneur Detlev Meyer. Over the past several decades, both of them have contributed phenomenally to the Hawesko Group.

Detlev Meyer, the chairman of the supervisory board of the Hawesko Group, stated: 'Bernd Siebdrat has had a formative influence on the B2B brand unit of the Hawesko Group for nearly 20 years now, and thus played a crucial role in the success of the entire Group. He enjoys great respect not only among our business partners, but throughout the world of wine. We thank him for his commitment to the management board and are delighted that he will continue to help us with all his experience and sure instincts in further advancing our B2B business in his new role.

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Hawesko Holding AG is a leading supplier of premium wines and champagnes. In fiscal year 2016, the group achieved sales of € 481 million and employed 940 persons in its three sales channels: omnichannel (Jacques' Wein-Depot), B2B (Wein Wolf and CWD Champagner- und Wein-Distributionsgesellschaft) and digital (especially Hawesko.de and Vinos.de). The shares of Hawesko Holding AG are listed on the Hanseatic Stock Exchange in Hamburg as well as in the prime standard segment of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

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