VARTA

VARTA AG
	Logo used since 2021
Company type	Public
Traded as	FWB: VAR1
ISIN	DE000A0TGJ55
Industry	Electrical equipment
Predecessor	Accumulatoren-Fabrik AFA
Founded	27 December 1887; 136 years ago
Founder	Adolf Müller
Headquarters	Ellwangen, Germany
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Michael Ostermann, CEO Rainer Hald, CTO Marc Hundsdorf, CFO
Products	Electrical batteries
Website	www.varta-ag.com

VARTA AG (pronounced [ˈvaʁta]; German: Vertrieb, Aufladung, Reparatur transportabler Akkumulatoren – lit. 'distribution, recharging and repair of portable accumulators') is a German company manufacturing batteries for global automotive, industrial, and consumer markets.

History

VARTA was founded by Adolf Müller in 1887, and established in 1904 as a subsidiary of Accumulatoren-Fabrik AFA.^[1] After World War I, VARTA together with AFA was acquired by German industrialist Günther Quandt and industrialist and VARTA CEO Dr. Carl Hermann Roderbourg.^[2] After World War II, most of the VARTA shares passed from Günther Quandt to his son, Herbert Quandt. The subsidiary in East Berlin was later occupied by the Soviet Union, and was named BAE Batterien.

In 1977, VARTA AG's businesses were split up by Herbert Quandt; battery and plastics operations were retained in VARTA AG, but the pharmaceuticals and specialty chemical businesses were transferred to a new company called Altana, and the electrical business was spun off into a company called CEAG. Herbert Quandt left the company's shares to his children.^{[citation needed]}

In 2002, the consumer battery activities (excluding button cells) were sold to Rayovac. The automotive battery business was acquired by Johnson Controls, and were sold on to Brookfield Business Partners in 2018.^[3] The button cell and home energy storage businesses were acquired by Montana Tech Components.^{[citation needed]} In 2019, VARTA acquired back its former consumer battery business from Energizer.^[4]

By 2006, VARTA AG had sold all its operating divisions, and the Quandts had sold their shares. VARTA AG then liquidated its remaining assets, contracts, liabilities and shareholdings, in particular the manufacture and sale of VARTA batteries, while continuing its company businesses.^{[citation needed]}

On 19 October 2017, 11,600,000 shares of the VARTA AG were floated on the stock market (Prime Standard), with an additional 1,740,000 bought by underwriters (green shoe), out of a total of 38,200,000 shares. With an issue price of 17.50 euro the company had a value of 668.5 million euro.^[5]^[6] On 2 January 2019, American company Energizer Holdings, Inc. took control over VARTA's consumer battery segment.^[7]^[8] On 29 May 2019, VARTA AG signed an agreement to acquire the VARTA Consumer Batteries business for the Europe, Middle East and Africa regions (including the manufacturing and distribution facilities in Germany) from Energizer Holdings, which was completed on 2 January 2020.^[9]^[10]

In 2020, the government gave Varta €300 Million for the construction of a production facility for EV lithium-ion batteries, but the company decided to abandon the project two years later to cut cost. In 2023 they cut 800 jobs.^[11] An attack on the IT systems in February 2024 forced the production down for one month^[12] and prevented the scheduled Annual general meeting in May 2024 which resulted in an exchange loss of some 8,4 %.^[13]

By June 2024 Varta had accumulated nearly € 500M in debt and informed the Amtsgericht Stuttgart about a major restructuring. According to press reports from July 2024, the company intended to reduce its nominal capital to zero, which would devaluate its stock.^[11] Martin Buchenau commented in the Handelsblatt in late July 2024, that while minor shareholders are destined to lose everything, major shareholder Michael Tojner and Porsche are entangled in a bitter fight with creditors about who will give up how much of the money they lent to VARTA.^[14] Along those lines, in August 2024 a compromise was reached: The shareholders lose their stock, the banks write off € 285M of VARTAs debt, Porsche and Tojner make a new combined investment of € 60M and become the owners of VARTA.^[15] The deal was based on the Act on the Stabilization and Restructuring Framework for Companies (Gesetz über den Stabilisierungs- und Restrukturierungsrahmen für Unternehmen, StaRUG) (“StaRUG”) from 2021. Under the act, the majority of the creditors has to agree to a restructuring plan, then the approval of the shareholders can be substituted by a court decision, preventing the sharholders from blocking their own sequestration.^[16]

In October 2024, Germany's Federal Cartel Office approved Porsche's acquisition of a non-controlling interest in VARTA as well as a majority of shares and sole control of V4Drive Battery, its business unit for large-format lithium-ion cells for electric cars.^[17]