2024-10-03 18:07:37
Reinhold Würth is withdrawing from his screw empire. He wasn’t the only one in his elementary school class who would later build a successful company.
The entrepreneur Reinhold Würth, known as the “Screw King”, wants to take a step back after more than 75 years in his professional life. At a ceremony marking his work anniversary in Künzelsau, the 89-year-old announced that he would hand over the chairmanship of the foundation’s supervisory board to his grandson Benjamin on January 1, 2025. Würth, who will serve as honorary chairman in the future, expressed confidence about the future of the company under the leadership of his grandson: “Benjamin is the future of this group,” he said.
Würth is one of the richest Germans and is a billionaire. In 2023, the Würth Group achieved sales of more than 20 billion euros and an annual profit of 1.13 billion euros. Würth is considered the world market leader in the field of fastening and assembly technology.
Würth’s success story began in his hometown of Künzelsau, a small town in the Franconian north of Baden-Württemberg. He attended elementary school there from 1941. But Würth was not the only one in his class who would become a successful entrepreneur. Two classmates did the same.
Albert Berner started school together with Reinhold Würth. He is the founder of the Berner Group, a European trading company in the areas of mobility, construction and industry. The company is active in the same field as Reinhold Würth. No wonder: Berner also learned from Würth’s father, the screw dealer Adolf Würth.
Both drove through the country together as screw sales representatives. In 1957, Berner opened his own shop in Künzelsau, laying the foundation for today’s Albert Berner Holding. In 1997 he largely withdrew from day-to-day operations and has been running his family business from the background ever since.
From the second grade onwards, another future entrepreneur joined Würth and Berner’s school class: Gerhard Sturm. During the Second World War, teachers were drafted into the Wehrmacht, so that some schools had to close, including Gerhard Sturm’s. So he came to the other two’s school.
Today Sturm is known as the founder of ebm-Papst. Elektrobau Mulfingen GmbH is considered a global market and technology leader in the field of fans, blowers and fan technology. In 1963, Sturm founded the group together with his mentor Heinz Ziehl. Sturm handed over the operational business in 2007.
The three boys attended school together for three years. After that, their paths crossed again and again. Würth and Sturm have founded companies that are each the largest of their kind in the world. The Berner Group’s sales also broke the billion mark.
In an interview with the magazine “Impulse” in 2010, Berner said about the relationship between the three entrepreneurs: “We go out to eat every now and then, and we invite each other over for birthdays. There are no barriers. That’s with both of us, Reinhold and me , something funny, good and beautiful, because there is competition and you are still happy when you see each other.”