Dr. Manfred Fuchs transformed a regional lubricants manufacturer into a global market and technology leader. After 54 years, he steps down from his position in the company.
Manfred Fuchs’ real passion was art. But his father Rudolf Fuchs, founder of FUCHS, encouraged him to study a practical subject instead – which is why he opted to study business administration at the University of Mannheim in 1958 instead of enrolling at the art academy.
Just one year later the family was dealt a severe blow when Rudolf Fuchs died. Manfred Fuchs took on responsibility for the family business: alongside his studies, he served his apprenticeship years at the company and took over the reins after graduating in 1963 at the age of just 24. In this new function, however, his creativity was a great asset: he “sculpted” the regional company into a global player in the lubricants sector in just twenty years. With more than three dozen acquisitions all over the world, he realized his vision of a global group of companies. The most important of these acquisitions were the French Labo Industrie and the British companies Silkolene and Century Oils. FUCHS’ sales revenues, which stood at just under 40 million euros in 1970, exceeded half a billion euros by 1990 and passed the billion-euro mark for the first time in 2002. Dr. Fuchs also recognized the importance of the Asian business at a very early stage, with FUCHS becoming one of the first German companies to enter into a joint venture agreement in China in 1985, a prerequisite for the first production facility in Yingkou.
In order to financially underpin this expansion, the company head, his mother and his two sisters decided to float the company on the stock exchange in 1985. However, the majority of the voting shares always remained in the possession of the founding family even during the increases in capital stock of the subsequent years, in which the founding family always participated. With a stock exchange value of around 6 billion euros, FUCHS PETROLUB is today one of the most valuable and successful stocks on the MDAX. The shareholders have enjoyed an increase in value of 3,400 percent over the last 15 years alone.
Dr. Manfred Fuchs headed the company for 41 years.
Painting is his great passion.
Dr. Manfred Fuchs was always very disciplined and a hard worker. He was on the road around 150 days a year to build up and hold together the Group. Even when traveling via airplane, car or train, the multilingual early riser wasted no time, studying files and dictating memos regardless of time differences and jet lag.
One of the key success factors was the positioning of FUCHS as a global specialist with a portfolio of 10,000 products for applications of all kinds. Many of these are tailor-made and developed in accordance with customer requirements. Dr. Fuchs is convinced that this is the right model: he believes that the company is large enough to act globally, but also small enough to serve niche markets. He also believes that high-tech sectors hold a lot of potential for the future. High-quality lubricants will even be needed in the e-mobility sector.
Dr. Fuchs not only succeeded in building up a successful group, an equally great achievement was the seamless handover to the next generation, his son Stefan, in 2004 after 41 years at the head of the company. Like his father, Stefan Fuchs also studied business administration in Mannheim. Perhaps a few character traits shared by the pair contributed to this easy transition. Neither Dr. Manfred Fuchs nor Stefan Fuchs set great store by grandiose appearances. Modesty is a value that is appreciated in the Fuchs family. And the father is proud of his son, who has further driven forward the globalization process, integrated the many acquisitions into the Group, created structures, developed the life’s work of his father and helped it blossom. The recipe for good teamwork is knowing when to step back: Dr. Fuchs never interfered in the decisions of his son and his team and completely withdrew from the operating business. He has already transferred many of his shares to his two children Susanne and Stefan Fuchs.
In the Supervisory Board he was content with the position of Deputy Chairman and, as during his time in the operating business, ceded the chairmanship to professionals from outside the family such as Dr. Jürgen Strube and Dr. Jürgen Hambrecht, the former Chairmen of the Board at the company’s big neighbor BASF from across the Rhine, a company the long-serving FUCHS chief had always viewed as a prime example of commercial soundness and good management.
His wife Lilo has always supported him.
Together with his wife Lilo, Dr. Fuchs is today a highly regarded patron and benefactor in the Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region, above all in the areas of culture and the sciences. The National Theater, Kunsthalle (art gallery), the Technoseum and the University in Mannheim as well as Speyer Cathedral were and remain close to his heart, to name just a few of his long-term commitments. This has been rewarded with numerous honors: for example, he is a freeman of his home city of Mannheim. He has also been awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Mannheim as well as the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Order of Merit of Baden-Württemberg and the Gold Medal of Merit of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce Rhine-Neckar.
However, he now uses his free time above all to pursue his great lifelong passion, painting. He only needs a few brush strokes to create a particular mood or atmosphere. In his studio these are then transformed into large-format paintings. His first works of art portrayed landscapes, towns or still life, but his focus soon shifted from the real to the abstract. Today Fuchs prefers action-packed creative processes with varnish and spray, a process he calls the “aesthetics of coincidence”. The revenue from his works goes to charitable projects. However, several of his large-scale, abstract compositions greet visitors at the company headquarters on Friesenheimer Island in Mannheim.
Dr. Manfred Fuchs and son Stefan Fuchs
Stefan Fuchs looks back at the great entrepreneurial achievements of his father.
How does your father feel about leaving the company?
After 41 years as Chairman of the Executive Board and 13 years as Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board, this step is a highly emotional one for him and of course also for our whole family.
But my father is now 78 years old. This decision was not easy for him and he is very happy that my sister will be taking over his position in the Supervisory Board. This is also a signal of continuity to our workforce.
What was the cooperation with your father like when you took over as Chairman of the Executive Board in 2004?
To be quite honest, initially I did not want to join FUCHS and had already signed a contract at an accounting firm following my studies. But my father had a really clever idea to get me on board.
In 1994 he convinced me to do a three-month internship with his long-standing business partner Frank Kleinman in the USA. I enjoyed it so much that I then joined the company after all in 1996.
And I haven’t regretted it for a single day. Looking back, the seam- less transition at the head of the company was the crowning glory of my father’s extremely successful business career. Anyone who knows him knows that he planned it to the finest detail and executed it in a highly disciplined manner. To this day I am grateful   and indebted to him that he has stayed out of the day-to-day running of the company since leaving the Executive Board. Even when there were differences of opinion, our discussions were always objective and characterized by mutual respect.
Looking back, what were your father’s most important decisions?
By making numerous acquisitions he turned FUCHS into a global player in the lubricants market and recognized very early the importance of the China business, where he signed a joint venture agreement as early as 1985. Another significant step taken in the same year was the stock exchange flotation in order to financially underpin this expansion. Alongside my father, we also have his two sisters to thank that the family always kept the majority of voting rights despite the subsequent increases in capital stock. They always participated in these capital increases, which was not always easy.
And what did he focus on after leaving the Executive Board?
I can still clearly remember him requesting to find a new task for his secretary, as he would no longer need her support in six months’ time at the latest. That was a major misjudgment – his secretary is one of the busiest members of staff on our floor to this day. This is down to my father’s many voluntary activities, above all in the field of art, culture and the sciences. Sometimes I think he would have become an artist if my grandfather had   lived longer and he had not had to take on responsibility at the company at such an early age. He is very passionate about art, and this is one aspect in which we are different. So, I am all the more grateful that he puts such a lot of work into sponsorship   and voluntary commitments so that I can largely concentrate on the operating business. Furthermore, he maintains our family office and manages our family’s wealth.
Will Dr. Fuchs also give up this voluntary work?
He will certainly give up some important functions, for example at the art gallery. But he will continue to be active as a patron. We are lucky that my father and my mother Lilo, who always offered him a lot of support, are both healthy and can now put more energy into pursuing their hobbies, traveling or spending time with their grandchildren.
To sum up, would you like to say a few words to your father?
Yes. I would like to thank him and tell him that I’m very proud of him and look back at his career in business with great respect. I also know that ownership brings with it responsibilities.
