▪ Decades-long business partnership deepened
▪ Long-term consolidation of raw material supply for production sites
▪ Logistics growing as an additional strategic pillar for the Koehler Group
▪ Access to trimodal logistics with rail, road, and inland waterway transportation
The Koehler Group, a producer of specialty paper and renewable energy, has acquired all outstanding shares of Kehl-based logistics company Klumpp + Müller through newly founded company Koehler Logistics GmbH. With this step, the company is sustainably consolidating its pulp logistics chain, a crucial step given that the raw material is indispensable for papermaking.
Access to rail, inland water transportation, regular port-to-port shipping, and container terminals
Founded in 1953, Klumpp + Müller employs over 150 people at the German port of Kehl. A logistics company with worldwide operations and one-of-a-kind trimodal services in the region, its primary and constant focus is on using its diversified portfolio to provide its customers with comprehensive transportation solutions. Every year, the company ships around 500,000 metric tons of goods via waterways, 150,000 metric tons of goods by rail, and, through groupage network CargoLine, around 100,000 LCL shipments. In addition, Klumpp + Müller offers direct service to all destinations Europewide, as well as extensive warehouse logistics areas with up to 20,000 pallet spaces.
Koehler Paper – a Koehler Group company – and Klumpp + Müller have worked together closely for more than 65 years already. The focus of this partnership has always been on the delivery of pulp from South America, the Iberian Peninsula, and Scandinavia. This raw material is absolutely indispensable for the production of paper, which is what Koehler Paper does at its sites in Oberkirch and Kehl. It is against this backdrop that a reliable and consolidated supply chain has increasingly become a challenge and a key competitive advantage in the past few years. Koehler Group CEO Kai Furler explains: “Two of the many factors that make our customers across the world value what we do are our dependability and our delivery reliability. By acquiring Klumpp + Müller, we are securing access to strategically important tri modal logistics at the port of Kehl and ensuring that our mills will keep being reliably supplied with raw material in the long term.”
Long-term thinking of both family businesses set to continue
The acquisition will result in the businesses becoming even more closely intermeshed, which both parties see as a logical and forward-looking step. “Both the Koehler Group and Klumpp + Müller are family businesses. That’s why we think and act in terms of generations and are not focused on short-term profit,” Furler says while explaining why the papermaking company is deepening its integration with the logistics sector. Klumpp + Müller shareholder Lotte Klumpp adds: “Family businesses share the same values, the same long-term thinking, and the same commitment to the region and the people who live there. The lack of a succession option within the family had been a concern for us for a while, and we believe that this acquisition not only solves that problem, but also ensures that Klumpp + Müller will be in the best possible hands.” Lotte Klumpp’s late husband, Dieter Klumpp, had originally taken over the logistics company from his father together with his brother Bernhard Klumpp, and from 2008 on expanded it into a modern logistics service provider with international operations together with his youngest brother Michael Klumpp.
This acquisition will not affect the operational independence of Klumpp + Müller, and accordingly will have zero impact on existing customer relationships. Moreover, no workforce reductions are planned for the logistics teams in either company. Instead, the enormous synergistic potential between the two should result in a significant business expansion. The acquisition is subject to approval by antitrust authorities.
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