Klaus-Michael Kühne has died
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Logistics billionaire Klaus-Michael Kühne has died in the early hours of Monday morning at the age of 89. The Swiss company he helped to build into a global logistics heavyweight, Kühne+Nagel, announced the news.
Kühne was a member of the board of directors and the majority shareholder of the group. His holding company also holds shares in, amongst others, Lufthansa, the shipping company Hapag-Lloyd, the chemical logistics firm Brenntag, the rail and bus operator Flix, and the Hamburg football club HSV.
“With the death of Klaus-Michael, we have lost a visionary, a great entrepreneur and a remarkable individual,” said Jörg Wolle, Kühne+Nagel chair.
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Kühne was a logistics expert through and through. Following a commercial apprenticeship, he joined the family business Kühne+Nagel in 1958 at the age of 21. In 1966 he became managing director and retained operational responsibility for decades. Later, he served as chair of the board of directors and, most recently, as a non-executive director.
Fortune heading to foundation
Over the course of all those years, what had been a Germany-focused freight forwarder evolved into a global logistics group. “My ambition was to create a global organisation. That took decades,” he once said in an interview.
Kühne was born in Hamburg in 1937 and emigrated to Switzerland with his father in the late 1960s. He ran his business empire from Schindellegi, Schwyz, in central Switzerland¨.
According to Manager Magazin, which first reported his death, Kühne is said to have returned from Mallorca to his Swiss home in Schindellegi ten days ago and to seek medical treatment.
Kühne and his wife Christine have no children. His fortune, which Bilanz estimated at between CHF21-22 billion in its annual list of the richest Swiss, is to pass to the Kühne Foundation following his death.
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Translated from German, reviewed by an English Department journalist.
