Press releases

OBI appoints two new Board Members reshuffling its management structure

Wermelskirchen, February 5th, 2008 - OBI is aggressively expanding in Central and Eastern Europe. Today OBI operates its business already in 11 countries. Within the next months OBI will enter three more countries namely Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine. Sales generated internationally will increase to well above 50 per cent in the coming years and with it push the internationalisation of our business. Germany is and will be by far the largest single OBI market.

As a consequence OBI will redesign the organisation by extending and further building up the corporate functions operating on a cross country level. OBI Germany will be one of several countries and thus gets a full-fledged organisation similar to all other OBI countries.

The new direction implies adjustments in the management structure of OBI:

Wolfram Stroese, Board Member for Germany and Logistics has left OBI as of today on his own request. We fully respect his decision and thank him for his great achievements and commitment for OBI.

Paolo Alemagna, Board Member, takes over responsibility for Logistics on top of his existing responsibilities for Corporate Category Management and Global Sourcing.

Oliver Geiling and Dieter Messner are appointed as new members of the OBI board.
Mr. Geiling (39) will be as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) responsible for Finance and Controlling. Mr. Messner (37) is responsible for OBI´s international business.

With immediate effect Andreas Sandmann (43) is responsible as Country Manager for the German business and will directly report to the OBI CEO Sergio Giroldi. Since January 2006 Mr. Sandmann has been responsible as Country Manager for OBI in the Czech Republic.

Ralf Pohl (48) will be the new Country Manager for the Czech Republic as per February 18th 2008.

Company portrait

With more than 500 stores OBI is the undisputed No 1 in the German market and one of the leading European DIY retailers. Apart from Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Poland, Hungary, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Russia, OBI is also present in Italy, Austria, Switzerland and Croatia. OBI is the fourth largest DIY retailer in the world and employs more than 38.000 people. The OBI stores recorded in the fiscal year 2006/2007 an overall sales worth EUR 5.8 billion. According to a survey by the TNS Infratest institute, OBI is among the best-known brands in Germany with unaided brand awareness in July 2007 of 97%.