Five years after the merger of Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and Nexter Systems under the joint holding KNDS, the Group’s governance is being restructured. With this new structure, the owners of the Franco-German manufacturer of military land systems – the French state holding company GIAT Industries and the German family-owned company Wegmann & Co GmbH – are continuing on the path they forged in 2015 advancing in defined milestones towards the creation of a leader in its field.

The shareholders have decided to streamline the governance structure by establishing a single Board of Directors replacing the existing supervisory and management boards. After a first phase where the two subsidiaries got to know each other under the management of two co-CEOS and started building the company, it is time now to enter into the next phase of integration and development. The new structure will enable more efficient and coherent management of the KNDS companies and optimum leveraging of their potential and synergies.

The future board of directors of KNDS will comprise ten members including the CEO of KNDS. Unanimously, the shareholders have appointed Frank Haun to assume this role. Frank Haun has served as CEO of Krauss-Maffei Wegmann since 2003. He played a crucial role in designing and building KNDS in 2015 and has been instrumental in the success of the company since 2015 as Co-CEO.

The intention of the two shareholders is that the Chairman of the Board of Directors will be Philippe Petitcolin, presently CEO of Safran. Petitcolin will bring to the company his deep and successful experience of industrial operations and international cooperations, including the defence industry. Petitcolin will take his position on March 1st, succeeding Christian Jourquin.

The new KNDS management also requires new appointments in management positions in the operational companies Nexter Systems and Krauss-Maffei Wegmann. The new CEO of Krauss-Maffei Wegmann will be Ralf Ketzel while the new CEO of Nexter Systems will be announced in the coming weeks.