Podcast „Alles neu...? Aus dem Maschinenraum“

The German chemical industry is in crisis: high energy costs, increasing regulation, and a weak economy. Many companies are relocating their production abroad, and some are questioning the future of their German sites. And then there is the specialty chemicals group ALTANA from Wesel on the Lower Rhine – which posted record results last year.

ALTANA AG is now part of the SKion holding company owned by Susanne Klatten, the daughter of Herbert Quandt, who once saved BMW from bankruptcy. In 2010, Klatten took the company private and made it wholly family-owned. Today, the group employs more than 8,000 people and manufactures specialty chemicals: additives for paints and batteries, insulating materials for electric motors, pigments for cosmetics. Only about ten percent of its revenue of just over 3 billion euros now comes from Germany. Nevertheless, CEO Martin Babilas believes in the country as a business location. “You can still operate successfully in Germany today,” he says. But he also clearly identifies what is holding the country back: rampant bureaucracy, excessively high energy costs, and delayed digitalization. Much of this, he says, is “well-intentioned, but simply not well executed.” Bold steps are long overdue – not just in the interest of industry.

In doing so, he highlights a broader context: “As a society, we will only be able to pursue this path toward sustainability if we have a strong, productive industry.” ALTANA products, for example, are used in wind turbines and electric cars. Sustainability, says Babilas, is no longer a niche topic in the chemical industry; in fact, “in recent years, it has increasingly been seen as a driver of growth.”

Martin Babilas also explains what a perfectly ordinary bottle cap has to do with 90,000 tons of steel and why, even after nearly 30 years at the same company, he has never seriously considered leaving – in the podcast “Alles Neu…? Aus dem Maschinenraum” with Tobias Rappers and Katja Michel.

How can the origin and future of Mittelstand companies be courageously united? What are the challenges facing family businesses and what experiences do they gather in digital transformation? These questions are answered by “Alles neu...? Aus dem Maschinenraum“, the interview podcast for German Mittelstand*. Once a month, Tobias Rappers, Managing Director of Maschinenraum, and Nils Kreimeier, Senior Editor of the business magazine Capital, talk to thought leaders and makers from the heart of the German economy and focus on the personalities and their motivation. *The podcast is in German.

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