DAW honoured as a TOP 500 family company

Ober-Ramstadt, 24th October 2016 (DAW) – In the past ten years the Family Enterprise Trust (Stiftung Familienunternehmen) has regularly had the national economic performance data of German family-owned companies examined by renowned scientific institutes. In particular it has been possible to establish the national economic importance of the group of large family companies for Germany as a whole. For example, the 500 largest German family companies provide more jobs than over one million craft-worker businesses and make an important contribution to the German employment market. In view of this the trust also presented a special award acknowledging the service given to the success of the German economy by DAW as one of the "TOP 500" family companies: "With DAW SE you have created a jewel of which you can be justifiably proud," said Managing Director, Stefan Heidbreder, when congratulating CEO, Dr. Ralf Murjahn, during the presentation of the award on 12th October in Ober-Ramstadt. DAW employs 3300 workers throughout the country, including 1300 people solely at the site in Ober-Ramstadt. Consequently, DAW has "in a special way rendered verified and economically recognised  services to our country and to its location," added Heidbreder with regard to the trust's studies. These showed that DAW is – in 75th place – one of the family companies with the highest turnover in the "Processing Sector" in Germany. For a long time the cumulative contribution of family companies to the national economy remained unnoticed, which, according to Heidbreder, "is surprising in view of the fact that this represents the original form of economic activity." The trust has closed this gap in research. As a result, it is now established that 91 percent of all companies in Germany are family companies and they are responsible in each case for about half the jobs and turnover in the private economy. A further fact is that there are many family companies (41 percent) amongst the major companies with more than 50 million euros turnover,  This particularly highlights Germany's corporate landscape internationally. Within the scope of the study the Family Enterprise Trust furthermore particularly considered the "TOP 500" of the major family companies. In the initial comparison with the 27 non-family controlled DAX companies, in 2003 – the first year for which there are figures available – they were approximately neck and neck. Now the TOP 500 have left the DAX companies way behind. According to Heidbreder, the figures underline "that for example regarding the tightening up of inheritance tax, it is precisely the group of family companies that would be affected that contribute disproportionally more to growth and employment in our country." He adds that constructive interaction between the family and the company is an essential success factor and that DAW has been outstandingly successful in this. Since 1895 the family company – now in its fifth generation – has progressed to be Europe's third largest manufacturer of building paints.