The German information portal ‘Die Deutsche Wirtschaft '(DDW) has published its new ranking for the 1,000 biggest family-owned enterprises. Heraeus is one of the Top 15 candidates: the technology group was ranked the 11th largest company in Germany, sharing that distinction with other leading companies, such as Volkswagen, BMW, Bosch, Aldi, Metro, Boehringer Ingelheim, Merck and others.
The ranking is determined by annual turnover of each company, and largely based on total revenue from 2017. In addition to the annual revenue, the evaluation also includes criteria such as research and university cooperations as well as the latest developments in the areas of digitization, artificial intelligence and robotics.
All 1,000 listed family businesses have a combined economic output of € 1.853 trillion. Family-owned enterprises are defined by DDW as companies with holding and group structures. The companies must be owned by German family-members.