In order to real­ize this ambi­tious plan, Selux has brought on a strong part­ner — an equity fund rep­re­sented by CMP Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment Part­ners is assum­ing con­trol of the glob­ally active spe­cial­ist for high-qual­ity, effi­cient, and well-designed light­ing solu­tions. Selux already casts light on major streets, squares, and places around the world, includ­ing the famous 9⁄11 World Trade Center Memo­r­ial in New York City. The aim is to fur­ther develop their posi­tion as one of the lead­ing com­pa­nies in the indus­try in the coming years. The head office will remain in Berlin, and the impor­tant pro­duc­tion site in Zachow near Ketzin (Bran­den­burg) will also remain open. Thou­sands of lights have already been pro­duced here, includ­ing the famous Schup­mann can­de­labra stand­ing at the Bran­den­burg Gate. The sites in Miri­bel (France) and High­land, New York (USA), which have both been suc­cess­ful for over 30 years, will con­tinue to ensure the effi­cient inter­na­tional pro­duc­tion of Selux prod­ucts in their local mar­kets.

“Selux is a cham­pion in its field”
​“When we were approached by the com­pany founded by the Bans­bach family to form a part­ner­ship, we imme­di­ately rec­og­nized that Selux is a cham­pion in its field. With its activ­i­ties in Ger­many, North Amer­ica, France, Great Britain, Sweden, Benelux, and Aus­tralia, Selux has a pow­er­ful world­wide pro­duc­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion net­work. At the same time, we see strong growth poten­tial for the global brand in many promi­nent loca­tions around the world. Using light as a cre­ative ele­ment in cen­tral loca­tions in high-qual­ity designs with out­stand­ing tech­nol­ogy enriches our lives,” says Kai Bran­des, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of CMP Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment Part­ners, which is also head­quar­tered in Berlin.

Approval by the Fed­eral Cartel Office com­pleted – clos­ing has taken place
Exe­cu­tion of the cor­po­rate acqui­si­tion was in the hands of Jan Det­tbarn from CMP, who has also been a member of the Exec­u­tive Board of Selux AG since mid-Novem­ber. ​“We are pleased with the suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of the trans­ac­tion. The pur­chase con­tract is signed, the approval by the Fed­eral Cartel Office has been received, and the clos­ing — the ful­fil­ment of all con­trac­tual terms — has taken place. This means secu­rity for the employ­ees, cus­tomers, and part­ners as well as for the sup­pli­ers.”

The com­pany gen­er­ated approx­i­mately 85 mil­lion euros in sales last year and employs around 400 employ­ees world­wide, includ­ing 190 in Ger­many. In Octo­ber 2019, a rec­on­cil­i­a­tion of inter­ests and a redun­dancy plan were agreed on with the Gen­eral Works Coun­cil. Accord­ing to these agree­ments, there will be lim­ited staff adjust­ments by the end of the year to increase effi­ciency, par­tic­u­larly in the admin­is­tra­tive area. As part of the plan to drive inno­va­tion, invest­ments in the amount of sev­eral mil­lion euros will be made in new intel­li­gent prod­ucts and the dig­i­tal net­work­ing of the inter­na­tional pro­duc­tion sites. Spe­cific focus is on the Berlin site and the Zachow pro­duc­tion site as well as the expan­sion of the sales offices in Europe and North Amer­ica.

Klaus-Peter Siemssen returns to Selux as CEO
​“After some dif­fi­cult but con­struc­tive nego­ti­a­tions, and despite some staff changes, we in the Gen­eral Works Coun­cil are look­ing opti­misti­cally to the future; espe­cially with regard to Klaus-Peter Siemssen’s return. As in pre­vi­ous years, we can con­tinue to count on the ex-per­tise, devo­tion, com­mit­ment, and loy­alty of our employ­ees into the future. Together we look for­ward to build­ing a rela­tion­ship that ensures we con­tinue to supply our cus­tomers with sophis­ti­cated light­ing solu­tions,” explains Robin Hübner, Pres­i­dent of the Gen­eral Works Coun­cil of Selux AG.

Return­ing to his former domain, Klaus-Peter Siemssen will take over the lead­er­ship of Selux AG as CEO on 1 Jan­u­ary 2020. Siemssen pre­vi­ously held this posi­tion from early 2010 until the end of 2014. ​“Selux is a strong brand. We real­ize sophis­ti­cated and sus­tain­able light­ing solu­tions with the most famous design­ers and archi­tec­tural offices around the world. To have the oppor­tu­nity to imple­ment the vision of a strong, inter­na­tion­ally active Selux with CMP and the global team is a chal­lenge I very much look for­ward to. Because of their dura­bil­ity, our prod­ucts have a very spe­cial respon­si­bil­ity — they shape the urban space and there­fore our cul­ture, as well as impact people. Part­ner­ship is cru­cial in this con­text; we can only achieve these extra­or­di­nary results as a team. I want to develop new things with the ded­i­cated team. In the future, with their exper­tise, we will be able to ensure the well-being of people and put very spe­cial places around the world in the best light. With this great foun­da­tion, we will be able to con­tinue to create many highly-regarded light­ing instal­la­tions together with our cus­tomers, light­ing design­ers, and archi­tects,” says Siemssen. ​“After all, it’s part of the DNA of Selux to create prod­uct inno­va­tions and to offer ever more capa­ble light­ing solu­tions. The market thinks long-term, and in addi­tion to high-qual­ity light and an effi­cient, time­less design, first-class work­man­ship is called for. Finally, the indi­vid­ual light­ing projects real­ized by us should do one thing above all — work reli­ably for decades to delight people.”