Good morning, dear readers,
It is generally assumed that fascist regimes are particularly good at impressive productions, while democracy often comes along with the pathos of a folder. It was the other way around yesterday.
A few hours apart, Vladimir Putin in Moscow and Joe Biden in Warsaw delivered their interpretation of the first anniversary of the Russian war of aggression. The Russian President read his almost two-hour speech in a sober tone to invited guests seated in rows. He attacks the West, talks about subsidies for home renovations, building schools and gas connections. And saves the one remarkable sentence almost to the end: “As of today, Russia is suspending its participation in the New Start Treaty.”
In the tone of a sub-district cashier, Putin is de facto terminating the last existing nuclear arms agreement with the United States.
And the US President? In the late afternoon, he takes the stage under the open sky in front of the Warsaw Royal Castle in front of thousands of spectators. Huge flags of the USA, Poland and Ukraine adorn the side of the square. Headlight batteries send a halo of rays into the dark sky over Biden. A twenty-minute staging of strength. This fits Biden’s message: “There is no sweeter word than freedom. There is no nobler goal than freedom. There is no greater hope than freedom.”
In his speech, the US President invoked the cohesion of the West on the side of Ukraine.
(Photo: AP)
Back to everyday life, in which we are concerned today with a side effect of the Ukraine war: According to information from the Handelsblatt, the board of directors of the chemical group BASF wants to announce the closure of part of its ammonia production in Ludwigshafen on Friday. BASF currently operates two ammonia plants there, which were temporarily shut down last year. Due to the extremely high gas prices, they were no longer profitable. According to information from company circles, the group does not want to put the older of the two plants back into operation. The development of ammonia synthesis at the beginning of the last century was one of BASF’s great pioneering achievements.
A savings program that has already been announced could result in the loss of up to 5,000 jobs at BASF. The largest share of this is likely to be at the plant in Ludwigshafen, where the group currently employs around 39,000 people – around a third of the global workforce.
Restructuring mood also at Fresenius: The Dax-listed healthcare group announced in the evening that it wanted to loosen its ties with the ailing dialysis subsidiary Fresenius Medical Care (FMC). FMC, also part of the Dax 40, is to be converted into a normal stock corporation. Fresenius currently controls the subsidiary via the structure of a partnership limited by shares (KGaA), but only holds around 32 percent of FMC shares. As a result of the deconsolidation, Fresenius would no longer have to fully include FMC in its own balance sheet. According to its own statements, Fresenius wants to keep its stake in FMC for the time being.
Fresenius also presented the latest business figures yesterday. They show that FMC 2022 was again a burden on the parent company’s balance sheet. Including currency effects, Fresenius’ sales grew by nine percent to EUR 40.8 billion, while net income fell by seven percent to EUR 1.73 billion.
So far, the German car manufacturers have not come up with a green bamboo shoot with their electric cars in China. Local brands and the US manufacturer Tesla sell significantly more battery-powered vehicles than German companies. The main arguments against Stromer Made in Germany: too expensive, not interactive enough.
Insurance data from China, which the Handelsblatt was able to see, shows the full extent of the problem. According to this, Volkswagen had a market share of 2.4 percent for purely electric vehicles last year. BMW failed with 0.8 percent at the one percent hurdle, Mercedes with 0.3 and Audi even with 0.1 percent. Since every car owner in China has to take out compulsory government insurance, the data is considered accurate.
This is a warning sign for the German manufacturers: they are dependent on the Chinese market. Here they sell more than a third of their vehicles worldwide, and a fifth of new combustion engine registrations in China are cars from German manufacturers. At the same time, the proportion of electric cars in China is growing rapidly. Industry pioneer Tesla sells more units of the Model Y alone in China than the German car manufacturers with all their electric models in total.
The Cologne translation service DeepL is the youngest unicorn from Germany. At the beginning of the year, the start-up raised fresh money and has since been valued by investors at more than one billion euros. But who will be the next to break into the ten-digit rating sphere?
The Tech Tour platform, a coalition of leading European investors, has compiled a list of the 50 fastest growing venture capital-backed technology companies in Europe that are already valued at more than 100 million euros and have the potential to become a unicorn in the future – i.e. a rating of reach more than one billion euros.
Eleven of the Einhorn candidates come from Germany (see graphic), also eleven from France and nine from Great Britain.
However, due to the turnaround in interest rates and the uncertain economic outlook, many venture capitalists are currently reluctant to put fresh money into start-ups. Falk Müller-Veerse, chairman of the Tech Tour selection committee and partner at the investment bank Bryan, Garnier & Co., is nevertheless certain: “All 50 companies have the potential for a valuation of one billion euros.”
We are closing with the UK’s third largest supermarket chain, Asda, which has made the dream come true for millions of children: Fresh fruit and vegetables are only available in rationed quantities in Asda branches, only a maximum of three tomatoes, peppers or broccoli per purchase. The cause is not a lobbying success of the previously unknown interest group “Youth Against Vitamins”, but according to the Bloomberg news agency simply a lack of replenishment of fruit and vegetable imports.
I wish you a crisp day with unlimited pleasures.
Best regards
Your Christian Rickens
Editor-in-Chief Handelsblatt
