Family spirit remains intact

Change of ownership: Huber family buys J. Schneider Elektrotechnik in Offenburg / All 420 employees retained

Offenburg (k-w). J. Schneider Elektrotechnik GmbH in Offenburg is opening a new chapter in its 84-year company history. After an intensive preparatory phase, the shareholders of the family-owned company have decided to transfer their shares to the friendly Huber family, owners of Peter Huber Kältemaschinenbau SE in Offenburg. The workforce was informed of the sale on Friday, 17 November.

Both companies will remain independent businesses. In order to ensure a seamless transition, the management of J. Schneider Elektrotechnik will remain in the hands of the managing partner Bettina Schneider and the previous managing director Rolf Anti until 2025. Both have been responsible for the business operations since 1999 and will oversee the transition to the Huber family. Peter Huber Kältemaschinenbau SE, which has won several awards in business competitions, is recognised as a leading provider of high-precision temperature control solutions for research and industry. "With the successful company J. Schneider, we will complement our existing business areas and continue to develop the business in the spirit of the previous Schneider family shareholders," explains Daniel Huber, CEO of the company, which is known as E

All of the approximately 420 employees will be taken on.

"We have been thinking for some time about how our family business could continue," says business administration graduate Bettina Schneider, who succeeded her father Karl Schneider in the management role in the 1990s, "especially as there is no successor within our family." It was therefore important to her to initiate the handover process in good time. Her father was a role model here, as he also entrusted her with responsibility for the business at an early stage.

"We are now handing over a healthy and economically very successful company that is involved in the important fields of the future," emphasises Bettina Schneider. The company will close 2023 with a turnover of over 100 million euros.

The family business was founded by her grandfather Johann Schneider, who laid the foundation for this development in 1939 with the opening of a repair workshop for electric motors and was expanded by Karl Schneider between 1972 and 1999 to become a major family business. Today, J. Schneider Elektrotechnik produces at four locations around Offenburg.

"The Huber family is the perfect partner," says Bettina Schneider, delighted with the conclusion of the "trusting sales negotiations", which were initiated with the proviso that neither an anonymous financial investor nor a large corporation would be allowed to take part.
"I always wanted the family spirit to be preserved so that the employees could continue to have their professional home at J. Schneider," says the managing partner. Both entrepreneurial families are on the same cultural wavelength, are rooted in Offenburg and have the same understanding of values. Both headquarters are also located in Offenburg's Elgersweier industrial estate in the immediate vicinity of each other and are roughly the same size in terms of the number of employees.