Klaus-Michael Kühne, majority shareholder of Kühne+Nagel, dies at 89

Billionaire entrepreneur Klaus-Michael Kühne died in the night between Sunday and Monday at the age of 89. He was the majority shareholder of Kühne+Nagel, the logistics group headquartered in Schindellegi, in the canton of Schwyz. The source does not report the circumstances of his death.

Kühne had joined the family company in 1958, at the age of 21. He climbed through every level of the internal hierarchy until becoming, in 1966, president of Kühne+Nagel Speditions-Aktiengesellschaft. In 1975 he moved into operational leadership as chief executive of the Kühne+Nagel International group. From 1992 to 2011 he chaired the board of directors. Since then he had held the title of honorary president of the company.

A global group

Under his leadership, spanning more than half a century, Kühne+Nagel grew into one of the largest logistics groups in the world. The company today employs 88,000 people in around a hundred countries, a figure that reflects the weight the group has come to hold in international freight markets.

The group's chairman, Jörg Wolle, commented on his death, saying the company had lost "un visionario, un grande imprenditore e una personalità straordinaria" ("a visionary, a great entrepreneur and an extraordinary personality"). CEO Stefan Paul said Kühne "incarnava come nessun altro la logistica e il commercio internazionale" ("embodied logistics and international trade like no one else").

Kühne's trajectory, from employee of the family firm to owner of a group with a worldwide presence, concerns a sector, international logistics, directly tied to the course of global trade and therefore exposed to its cycles and to competition among operators. His long tenure at the top, first in operational leadership and later as chairman of the board, coincided with the group's phases of strongest expansion.

His death closes a chapter for a company whose governance, since Kühne's departure from the operational presidency in 2011, has already been in other hands for years. The question remains open of how his majority stake will be managed in future, an issue that concerns not only the Kühne family but also the group's 88,000 employees, active in around a hundred countries.