Germany: Rickmers Group Gets New Deputy CFO

Dr Mark-Ken Erdmann will join Rickmers Holding in Hamburg as Deputy CFO as of 1 July 2012. In this position, he will be responsible for a broad range of corporate functions including Accounting & Controlling, Tax, IT, Human Resources, Legal Affairs, as well as Mergers & Acquisitions. He will report to Dr Ignace Van Meenen, who in addition to his role as CFO, was recently nominated Deputy CEO of the Rickmers Group.

Dr Erdmann is joining Rickmers from Bertelsmann AG, where he has been CIO and Member of the Corporate Centre Board, as well as CEO of the in-house consulting division “Bertelsmann Business Consulting”. Dr Erdmann reported directly to Bertelsmann Group’s CEO, Dr Thomas Rabe. Between 2005 and 2008, he was Senior Vice President responsible for Projects and Policies within the Bertelsmann Group’s Corporate Financial Reporting. Before joining Bertelsmann in 2003, Dr Erdmann gained more than four years of cross industrial experience at Ernst & Young AG and finished his PhD in Management Accounting. In October 2011 he was also nominated for an Honorary Professorship by the academic senate of Leipzig Graduate School of Management.

Dr Van Meenen, CFO/Deputy CEO of Rickmers Group, said:

“We are delighted that Dr Erdmann is joining the Rickmers Group at this exciting time when we are operating in a highly dynamic business environment. We have identified substantial opportunities for profitable growth and we are positioning the Rickmers Group to take advantage of these. Diversifying our sources of long term corporate funding beyond traditional bank financing and implementing a highly responsive financial organisation are both critical elements to that strategy. This has also led to the creation of a new business unit, Capital Markets, where we will consolidate our relationships with bank and non-bank institutional sources of funding.

“We are making good progress in identifying institutional sources of capital which are seeking long term participation in shipping as an asset class in partnership with the Rickmers Group and we are optimising our Group’s corporate finance operating model in response to changing complexity. Dr Erdmann’s wealth of experience with best-in-class financial administration structures will be an invaluable asset in these projects and more widely for the Group.”

Dr Erdmann added:

“I am looking forward to working for this well-established and renowned family company. My short term target will be to enhance the efficiency of the financial organisation of Rickmers Group in order to enable and support our international growth strategy.”

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Source: Rickmers Group, February 23, 2012; Image: Rickmers Group