Company type | Public ( Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien with a Societas Europaea as general partner) |
---|---|
FWB: KWS | |
Industry | Agriculture, Biotechnology |
Predecessor | (1856) Rabbethge, Giesecke & Reinecke OHG (offene Handelsgesellschaft) (1864) Rabbethge & Giesecke OHG (1885) Conversion of the OHG into Zuckerfabrik (sugar refinery) Klein Wanzleben formerly Rabbethge & Giesecke AG (1937) Rabbethge & Giesecke AG (1946) Rescue company Rabbethge & Giesecke Saatzucht GmbH (1951) Kleinwanzlebener Saatzucht formerly Rabbethge & Giesecke AG (1975) KWS Kleinwanzlebener Saatzucht AG formerly Rabbethge & Giesecke (1999) KWS SAAT AG (2015) KWS SAAT SE (2019) KWS SAAT SE & Co. KGaA |
Founded | Klein Wanzleben, Germany (1856 ) |
Founder | Matthias Christian Rabbethge |
Headquarters | , |
Area served | Europe, North America, South America, Asia, the Middle East, North Africa |
Key people | Hagen Duenbostel [1] (CEO), Andreas J. Büchting (Chairman of the supervisory board) |
Products | seeds varieties for : sugar beet, corn, cereals, oil and pritein plants, sorghum, catch crops, vegetables |
Revenue | €1,539.5 million (2021/22) |
€155.1 million (2021/22) | |
€107.8 million (2021/22) | |
Total assets | € 2,651.8 million (2021/22) |
Owner | As of 30 June 2019: Families Büchting/Arend Oetker (54.4%) Tessner Beteiligungs GmbH (15.4%) free float (30.2%) |
Number of employees | 5,000 (2021/2022) [2] |
Subsidiaries | the largest subsidiaries are: AgReliant Genetics LLC., (50%)- (USA) cereals: KWS LOCHOW GMBH (100%)- (Germany) |
Website | http://www.kws.com |
KWS SAAT SE & Co. KGaA (ISIN: DE0007074007) is a European independent and family-owned company based in Germany that focuses on plant breeding, with activities in about 70 countries. KWS is the fourth largest seed producer worldwide based on sales in agricultural crops. [3] The product range includes seed varieties for sugar beet, corn, cereals, oil and protein plants, sorghum, catch crops ans vegetables. The capital letters "K," "W" and "S" in the name KWS stand for Klein Wanzlebener Saatzucht, which means seed breeding from Klein Wanzleben. The company's original headquarters were in Klein Wanzleben, an East German town located near the city of Magdeburg. Its main markets are in Europe, North and South America as well as Asia. KWS has breeding and distribution activities in more than 70 countries. In 1954, the company went public on the Hamburg-Hannover Stock Exchange and has been on the SDAX list of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange since June 2006. In addition, the shares are listed in the Nisax20 index of shares in Lower Saxony.
In 1838 the Kleinwanzleben Zuckerfabrik (Kleinwanzleben Sugar Refinery) was founded as a stock company. [4] In 1856 the majority of its shares were acquired by the sugar beet grower and farmer Matthias Christian Rabbethge, one of the pioneers of the German sugar industry. In the same year he and his then future son-in-law Julius Giesecke founded a general commercial partnership (OHG). In 1885 the Rabbethge & Giesecke OHG became a joint stock company (Aktiengesellschaft) under the name Zuckerfabrik Klein Wanzleben formerly Rabbethge & Giesecke Aktiengesellschaft (AG). In 1937 it was changed into Rabbethge & Giesecke AG because the Reichsnährstand did not want any anonymous investors in the agriculture and forestry sector. After the Second World War the company was relocated to the Lower Saxonian city of Einbeck which has been its headquarters since then. In 1946 a rescue company was established under the name Rabbethge & Giesecke Saatzucht GmbH. The foundation of this rescue company was necessary in order to continue the Western activities of the original joint stock company, which was still based in Klein Wanzleben. [5] In 1951 the two companies were merged and took the title Kleinwanzlebener Saatzucht formerly Rabbethge & Giesecke AG. In 1975 it was changed into KWS Kleinwanzlebener Saatzucht formerly Rabbethge & Giesecke and then finally reduced to KWS SAAT AG in 1999.In spring 2015, KWS SAAT AG was renamed the European stock corporation KWS SAAT SE. At the beginning of July 2019, KWS completed a transformation of its legal form into KWS SAAT SE & Co. KGaA. The first international branch of KWS was established in 1900 in the Ukrainian town Vinnytsia to meet the demand of sugar beet farmers in Russia. In 1920 the company began to expand its business into corn, fodder beet and potato breeding. Following the relocation to Einbeck, KWS focused on the breeding of sugar beet, corn, rapeseed, sunflower, cereals and potatoes. In the years directly after the war, the company became an important supplier to the West German sugar beet industry. Since 1963 it has established subsidiaries in Europe, North and South America, Asia and North Africa.
In the 1950s the company began intensifying its business in Western and South European countries. At the same time it also started to expand its activities in the US sugar beet market. In 1956 KWS acquired the company Segenta in Chile and Pan Tohum Islah ve Üretme A.S. in Turkey. In 1967/68 it began merging its cereal breeding activities with the companies Heine-Peragis and Lochow-Petkus GmbH. In 2008, KWS acquired Lochow-Petkus GmbH which was subsequently renamed KWS LOCHOW GMBH. [6] In 1968 KWS collaborated with the American plant breeder Northrup King Company to found the company Betaseed. In 1978 it founded KWS Seeds Inc. to manage all business activities in North America. In the 1990s the company acquired the Argentinean breeding company Trebol Sur which was then renamed KWS Argentina in 1997.
In 2000 the French plant breeding group Limagrain and KWS decided to merge their corn business in North America and formed the joint venture AgReliant. In 2003 KWS founded KWS Türk in Turkey to enhance the distribution of seeds in North Africa (Morocco, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt) and Middle Eastern countries including Iran, Iraq and Lebanon. [7] In 2008 KWS and the Dutch Van Rijn Group established a joint venture in breeding potato seeds and in April 2011 KWS acquired the remaining interests in Van Rijn and formed the subsidiary KWS POTATO B.V. [8] In September 2011 it founded a joint venture with the Chinese company Kenfeng to manage the production and distribution of corn seed in China. [9] In October 2011 KWS and the French seed producer Vilmorin formed a research collaboration as a 50/50 joint venture company to develop GM corn traits. [10]
In June 2012 KWS acquired the Brazilian companies SEMÍLIA and DELTA that are located in Paraná and run four breeding stations in Brazil. On 1 July 2012 both companies merged to form KWS BRASIL PESQUISA & SEMENTES LTDA. As of 1 July 2012, KWS acquired a majority shareholder position in the company RIBER whose name was then changed to RIBER – KWS SEMENTES S.A. This company, situated in the Brazilian state Minas Gerais, will continue its focus on the Brazilian market through offering GM corn hybrids and soybean varieties. [11] In 2018, KWS announced that they will close all the Service Centers located in different parts of the world (Barcelona, Vienna, Einbeck, São Paulo) to Berlin as part of the owner's family decision. These movements will be done during the next 3 years within the ONEGLOBE project and Barcelona Service Center was the first movement that will shut down the operations in June 2019. Projects were launched to organize the transfer of activities and the next step will be dealing with Vienna activities. It will be a challenge for people to adapt to the new situation and potentially locate some of them in Berlin.
With the acquisition of the Dutch company Pop Vriend Seeds on 1 July 2019, KWS entered into the vegetable seed business. In contrast to the calendar year, KWS has a fiscal year from 1 July to 30 June. [12]
The company invests an average of 17% of its annual turnover in research and development to develop new seed varieties adapted to agricultural requirements, climatic conditions and geological conditions. KWS uses various breeding methods such as cross & selection, line and hybrid breeding, digital phenotyping, genetic engineering and genome editing [13]
A sugar beet is a plant whose root contains a high concentration of sucrose and which is grown commercially for sugar production. In plant breeding, it is known as the Altissima cultivar group of the common beet. Together with other beet cultivars, such as beetroot and chard, it belongs to the subspecies Beta vulgaris subsp. vulgaris but classified as var. saccharifera . Its closest wild relative is the sea beet.
Nyssa is a city in Malheur County, Oregon, United States. The population was 3,267 at the 2010 census. The city is located along the Snake River on the Idaho border, in the region of far eastern Oregon known as the "Treasure Valley". It is part of the Ontario, OR–ID Micropolitan Statistical Area.
Einbeck is a town in the district Northeim, in southern Lower Saxony, Germany, on the German Timber-Frame Road.
Edel SE & Co. KGaA is a German independent media company based in Hamburg. As a label and publishing group, it also operates marketing and sales for artists and smaller music labels. The repertoire of the Edel labels includes dance, rock and pop music to classical music and a children's catalogue. In addition to the development and marketing of music, the group also deals with the production, logistics and distribution of CDs, DVDs, vinyl records, and books at the production site of the subsidiary optimal media GmbH in Röbel/Müritz as well as with services in the online and book business.
Syngenta is a provider of agricultural science and technology, in particular seeds and pesticides with its management headquarters in Basel, Switzerland. It is part of Syngenta Group, entirely owned by Sinochem, a Chinese state-owned enterprise.
The Amalgamated Sugar Company is an American sugar beet-refining company run on a cooperative basis. It was founded in 1897 in Ogden, Utah, and is now located in Boise, Idaho. The company markets its sugar under the White Satin brand.
Curly top is a viral disease that affects many crops. This disease causes plants to become smaller in size, have shriveled petals and leaves, and are twisted and pulled out of shape. They are often caused by curtoviruses, members of the virus family Geminiviridae. This disease is important in western United States, such as California, Utah, Washington, and Idaho.
The Agrana Group is a food company based in Vienna that produces sugar, starch, fruit preparation, juice concentrate and ethanol fuel. Agrana is mainly supplying to international food industry, with some minor end customer business. A known brand is Wiener Zucker. Agrana runs around 50 facilities with major production bases in Australia, Austria, Argentina, Brasil, China, France, Germany, Hungary, South Korea, Morocco, Mexico, Poland, Romania, South Africa, Ukraine, United States.
Roundup Ready is the Monsanto trademark for its patented line of genetically modified crop seeds that are resistant to its glyphosate-based herbicide, Roundup.
Jeffrey Steven White is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
Vilmorin is a French seed producer. The company has a long history in France, where it was family-controlled for almost two centuries, and today exists as a publicly traded company owned principally by agro-industrial cooperative Groupe Limagrain, the largest plant breeding and seed company in the European Union.
Limagrain is an international agricultural co-operative group, specialized in field seeds, vegetable seeds and cereal products. Founded and managed by French farmers, Limagrain is the 3rd largest seed company in the world through its holding Vilmorin & Cie, European leader for functional flours through Limagrain Céréales Ingrédients, 2nd largest French baker and 3rd largest French pastry maker through Jacquet-Brossard.
The Utah-Idaho Sugar Company was a large sugar beet processing company based in Utah. It was owned and controlled by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its leaders. It was notable for developing a valuable cash crop and processing facilities that was important to the economy of Utah and surrounding states. It was part of the Sugar Trust, and subject to antitrust investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Hardwick Committee.
BASF Plant Science is a subsidiary of BASF in which all plant biotechnology activities are consolidated. The company was founded in 1998 and employs approximately 700 people at 6 different locations worldwide. The headquarters of BASF Plant Science is located in Research Triangle Park and has research sites in the US, Canada, and Europe. The company mainly develops genetically modified seeds at these locations.
Matthias Christian Rabbethge was a German sugar beet grower and sugar manufacturer.
Nordzucker AG, headquartered in Braunschweig, Germany, is Europe’s second largest sugar manufacturer. The production of sugar, liquid sugars and other specialities for the application in the nutrition, beverage and sweets industry as well as other sugar specialities like refined sugar, icing sugar, lump sugar, preserving sugar, tea sugars, organic sugar and flavoured sugars for consumers are the core business of the company. In addition to that, Nordzucker produces animal feed and bioethanol from sugar beet. In the 2020/2021 financial year, the company produced 2.7 million tons of sugar from sugar beet and 0.7 million tons of sugar from sugar cane. Sales added up to EUR 1.67 billion and net income came to EUR 66 million.
A genetically modified sugar beet is a sugar beet that has been genetically engineered by the direct modification of its genome using biotechnology. Commercialized GM sugar beets make use of a glyphosate-resistance modification developed by Monsanto and KWS Saat. These glyphosate-resistant beets, also called 'Roundup Ready' sugar beets, were developed by 2000, but not commercialized until 2007. For international trade, sugar beets have a Maximum Residue Limit of glyphosate of 15 mg/Kg at harvest. As of 2016, GMO sugar beets are grown in the United States and Canada. In the United States, they play an important role in domestic sugar production. Studies have concluded the sugar from glyphosate-resistant sugar beets is molecularly identical to and so has the same nutritional value as sugar from conventional (non-GMO) sugar beets.
Surinder Mohan (Suri) Sehgal is an Indian-American philanthropist with a long career as a crop scientist, seedsman, entrepreneur, and leading global hybrid seed industry expert. His research and professional successes in the areas of plant breeding and genetics, ag biotechnology, intellectual property, business management, and seed industry development were carried out in executive capacities in several companies in the United States, Belgium, and Germany. After the divestment of a group of four seed companies that Sehgal founded and ran with his wife, Edda Sehgal, the couple created two nonprofit organizations to promote rural development in Suri's country of origin: Sehgal (Family) Foundation in 1998 in the US, and S M Sehgal Foundation in India. The foundation focuses on water security, food security, and social justice, particularly empowerment. A proponent of corporate social responsibility and environmental sustainability, Sehgal has also provided support individually and through the foundations for projects related to agriculture research, the preservation of biodiversity and the conservation of natural resources.
Jakob Gottlieb Ferdinand Heine was a German ornithologist, agronomist and plant-breeder. Heine was the eldest son of ornithologist Ferdinand Heine (1809–1894).
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