The Secret Power Behind BMW and VARTA
When people think of BMW or VARTA, they think of engineering and reliability, not of the family that actually controls both names. Behind the scenes, one of Germany’s most powerful industrial dynasties has shaped both companies for a century. That family is the Quandts.
Most drivers who own a BMW have never heard the name Quandt. Yet this family’s decisions, going back to the 1920s, still shape how BMW is run today.
Who Are the Quandts?
The Quandt family is a German industrial dynasty. Their story starts with Günther Quandt, a businessman who built his fortune during the First World War. He supplied uniforms to the German army and used the profits to buy struggling industrial companies during the interwar years.
One of those companies was AFA, a battery manufacturer based in Hagen and Hanover. AFA later became known worldwide under a different name: VARTA. Günther Quandt became AFA’s majority shareholder in 1923, decades before BMW ever entered the family’s portfolio.
His son, Herbert Quandt, expanded the family’s reach even further. Herbert is the man most directly linked to BMW’s modern success.
Ownership in BMW Today
BMW Group includes three brands: BMW, MINI, and Rolls-Royce. Two shareholders from the Quandt family sit above every other investor on the share register.
- Stefan Quandt, son of Herbert Quandt, holds roughly 24–26% of BMW shares.
- Susanne Klatten, Herbert’s daughter, holds roughly 19–21% of BMW shares.
Together, the siblings control close to 47% of the company. That figure gives them a blocking minority on major structural decisions, without needing a full majority stake.
ℹ️ Note: exact percentages shift slightly year to year as reported by different financial trackers, but the combined Quandt stake has stayed close to this level for decades.
Herbert Quandt is widely credited with saving BMW from bankruptcy in the late 1950s. At the time, other shareholders were ready to sell the company to Daimler-Benz. Herbert increased his own shareholding instead, blocked the takeover, and kept BMW independent. That single decision is often cited as the moment that shaped BMW’s entire future.
The Deeper Roots: Günther Quandt and the Battery Empire
Long before BMW became the family’s flagship asset, batteries were the core business. Günther Quandt built AFA into one of Germany’s most important industrial suppliers.
During the interwar years, AFA expanded into new product lines. It acquired the Pertrix brand and became a major producer of dry-cell and lead-acid batteries. By the late 1920s, the company was manufacturing well over a hundred million batteries a year.
During the Second World War, AFA’s batteries became a critical military component. The company supplied batteries for submarines and for long-range rockets. Günther Quandt held close ties to the Nazi leadership during this period, a subject covered in more detail further below.
After the war, Herbert Quandt rebuilt the business while his father was held in an internment camp. Production resumed within months, and the company expanded again through the postwar decades.
What Happened to VARTA?
By the 1970s, the family’s battery business had grown far beyond a single product line. In 1977, Herbert Quandt split the group into separate companies:
- VARTA kept the core battery and plastics operations.
- Altana was created to house the pharmaceutical and specialty chemical divisions.
- CEAG was spun off to handle electrical equipment.
Herbert passed shares in these companies down to his children, which is how VARTA and Altana ended up in different branches of the family. Susanne Klatten still controls Altana today, now a global specialty chemicals and pharmaceutical company.
VARTA itself followed a different path. Through the 1990s and early 2000s, the family gradually reduced its involvement. By 2006, the Quandts had sold their remaining VARTA shares entirely. The brand’s businesses were split apart and sold to different buyers over the following years, including Rayovac and Johnson Controls. VARTA AG later returned to the stock market as an independent public company.
So while VARTA still carries the Quandt legacy in its history, the family has had no ownership stake in it for close to two decades.
Beyond BMW and VARTA: Other Family Holdings
BMW may be the flagship, but it is far from the family’s only asset. Each branch of the family runs its own separate investment portfolio.
- Susanne Klatten controls Altana, the pharmaceutical and chemical group descended from the old VARTA split. She also holds stakes in companies working on digital identity technology and in carbon and graphite materials production.
- Stefan Quandt runs Delton AG, a holding company with interests spanning homeopathic medicine, logistics, and industrial power supply equipment. His logistics investment, Logwin, operates internationally.
Both siblings sit on BMW’s supervisory board, giving them a direct voice in the company’s strategic direction, separate from their shareholding alone.
A Quick Overview of the Family’s Current Holdings
| Family Member | Main Holding Company | Key Assets |
|---|---|---|
| Stefan Quandt | Delton AG | BMW stake, Logwin logistics, Heel homeopathic medicine, CEAG power equipment |
| Susanne Klatten | SKion GmbH / Altana | BMW stake, Altana chemicals and pharmaceuticals, SGL Carbon stake, Entrust digital identity |
The split is not a coincidence. Herbert Quandt structured the inheritance so that each branch of the family could run its own portfolio independently, while still sharing joint control over BMW itself. That structure has kept the family’s core BMW stake intact across three generations, even as every other business was divided or sold off separately.
Why This Still Matters for Car Buyers Today
Most shareholders in a public company are financial investors, moving in and out based on quarterly results. The Quandt stake works differently. Neither sibling has sold down their position in decades, despite the shares being worth tens of billions of dollars combined.
This kind of long-term, family-anchored ownership shapes how BMW makes decisions. Major strategic shifts, including BMW’s electric vehicle investment and its resistance to past merger proposals, have all happened under the shadow of this controlling family bloc. A hostile takeover of BMW is effectively impossible without the family’s consent, since no outside buyer can reach the threshold needed to override their blocking stake.
A Legacy of Discretion
Despite ranking among the wealthiest people in Germany, the Quandts rarely appear in public interviews. Media appearances are unusual, and both Stefan Quandt and Susanne Klatten tend to let their companies speak instead of speaking themselves.
This pattern goes back generations. Herbert Quandt avoided the spotlight even at the height of his influence over BMW. His widow, Johanna Quandt, later took a supervisory board seat and kept the same low public profile for fifteen years.
A Note on Controversy
The Quandt fortune carries a difficult history alongside its industrial success. Günther Quandt joined the Nazi party in 1933 and maintained close ties to senior Nazi officials throughout the following decade. He was later named to a senior wartime economic role by the regime.
AFA’s wartime production relied on forced labor. A company-run subcamp, tied to a larger concentration camp system, operated alongside the battery works near Hanover during the war. Workers held there were forced to labor in the factory under the family’s ownership.
For decades after the war, this history received little public attention. That changed in 2007, when a German television documentary examined the family’s conduct during the Nazi era in detail. The broadcast prompted the family to commission independent historical research into its wartime record, and the family has since publicly acknowledged this part of its past.
Conclusion
The Quandt family remains one of the most influential forces in the global automotive industry, even though most BMW owners have never heard their name. Their combined stake in BMW, built from a single decision by Herbert Quandt in the 1950s, still shapes the company today.
VARTA, the battery brand many people still associate with the family, has not been in Quandt hands since 2006. Yet the company’s entire early history, and the industrial fortune that eventually built BMW’s controlling shareholder base, traces back to the same battery works the family once ran under a very different name: AFA.
✍️ Author: Bejenaru Alexandru Ionut – [email protected]
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