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Meyer family acts to ensure long-term, stable ownership of yards in Germany, Finland

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Three of the Meyer family involved in the shipbuilding business include, from left, Bernard Meyer, Dr. Jan Meyer and Tim Meyer. At right is Lambert Kruse, a member of the Meyer Werft management (Photo: Meyer Werft)
The Meyer family of Papenburg, Germany, has been building ships for 221 years, surviving and thriving in an increasingly competitive global market using a long-term approach that fosters technology development, advances employees' skills and reinvests profits. All this hinges on a stable ownership structure so the family has decided to donate its shares to two family foundations.

In Germany the family foundation is a proven framework to ensure long-term, stable ownership in a single hand. The Meyer family said this will support the sustainable development of its yards in Turku, Papenburg and Warnemünde.

Now the next generation of the family is entering the business. Dr. Jan Meyer, 39, has been involved since 2008 and has served as ceo of Meyer Turku Oy since 2014. Since June 1, Tim Meyer, 34, has become one of the managing directors at Meyer Werft in Papenburg. And Dr. Paul Meyer, 33, is taking over the IT responsibility for all the yards as chief information officer.

With the Meyer family putting its shares into two family foundations, in future one foundation will be the long-term owner of Meyer Turku and the other will own the shares in the Meyer companies in Germany.

The operating management will not be affected by the introduction of the foundations.

'Family foundations are, for us, the ideal framework to maintain a single and stable owner for the shipyards in Turku, Papenburg and Warnemünde, also for future generations. By this step we want to secure the core success factors of our long-term success and maintain the character of a family company,' said patriarch Bernard Meyer.