It's official, the company knds, which brings together French Nexter and German Krauss-Maffei Wegman, and which was until now headed by a two-headed structure made up of Nexter CEO Stephan Mayer and his KMW counterpart, will see its structure evolve, and will now be managed by a 9-person board chaired by Philippe Petitcolin, CEO from the French engine manufacturer Safran, while the company will pass under the direction of Frank Haun, until now boss of KMW, who will be replaced in this position by the vice-president of the company, Ralf Ketzel, while for his part, Stéphane Mayer will leave Nexter, without his successor having been appointed so far .
On the side of the Ministry of the Armed Forces as the Ministry of the Economy, we are pleased with this development which marks the merger of the two European groups. It is also specified that the general management of KNDS will be held alternately by a German and a French, and that the shareholding of the group remains the same, with strict parity between France and Germany. However, this decision is far from raising an overflowing enthusiasm, especially in France, with the fear affirmed and assumed that, little by little, the national industry of production of military land vehicles will pass under German control. In the line of sight, the second leading German group in this field, Rheinmetall, very politically supported and especially in the Bundestag, who would see each other well integrate a European armored giant at parity with KNDS, which would automatically reduce France's relative share to only 25% in the hypothetical new group thus created.
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