"My fellow board members and I, and our employees in the group, owe professor Späth a tremendous amount," said Martin Herrenknecht, chairman of the board of management and founder of Herrenknecht. "With his extraordinary foresight, reliability and professionalism he has always been our guarantee that we could successfully cope with the globalisation of the company and its extremely rapid growth. Guided by his expertise and his wise direction we have successfully negotiated all obstacles on the way to becoming a global champion and are ideally positioned for the future."

Herrenknecht added that Hans-Jörg Vetter will be an asset to the company: "I am very pleased that we have been able to gain a renowned top player from the financial sector for this position. We thus have the professional continuity in this role that is crucial for a globally operating family-run company and technology leader."