Medion to be split up
Shortly after Lenovo took over the Essen-based electronics retailer completely, the company founder buys back a large part of the company from the Chinese.
A Medion notebook from the new "Avantum" series.
(Image: c’t)
Medion GmbH has only been fully owned by Lenovo since the beginning of the year, but the company has held a majority stake in the German electronics retailer since 2011. The group has now divested itself of a large part of its stake, as reported by Wirtschaftswoche.
Lenovo will only retain the PC division and will continue to produce notebooks and PCs under the Medion and Erazer brand names. Everything else, i.e. household electronics, TVs, wearables and Aldi Talk sales, will now belong to a newly founded Medion GmbH. This company will also be responsible for the sales and marketing of Medion and Erazer PCs, while Lenovo will only act as an OEM supplier. The Medion online store is already operating under the new company.
The owner of the GmbH is Gerd Brachmann, who founded the company together with a business partner in 1983 and took it public in 1999. Brachmann remained on board as a business partner after the takeover.
Crisis after a long boom
Through its cooperation with Aldi, Medion grew into one of the largest electronics and computer retailers in Germany in the "noughties" and was also a major player in the telecommunications business with Aldi Talk. Most recently, the company regularly slipped into the red. The new company is aiming for a result of 10 million euros on sales of 600 million euros for the current financial year.
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Nothing is known about the purchase price of the company. According to Wirtschaftswoche, most of the employees will transfer to the new limited company. Only 23 employees will remain with Lenovo. Shortly before the buyback by Brachmann, a new cooperation agreement was concluded with the service company of E-Plus, a subsidiary of Telefónica, which provides the network for Aldi Talk.
(ulw)
