Legal Structure

The parent and holding company Bechtle AG, headquartered in Neckarsulm, Germany, is responsible for strategic business planning and central duties in the fields of finance and controlling, investor relations, IT computing centre, human resources, quality management, legal and compliance plus corporate communication. The Bechtle Academy serves as the central training base for the employees. The central functions purchasing, warehouse, product management, and catalogue production are handled by Bechtle Logistik & Service GmbH, which also belongs to the holding.

Under Bechtle AG, the group has implemented another layer of holding companies in which the business areas and brands of the two reporting segments IT system house & managed services and IT e-commerce are bundled:

• Bechtle Systemhaus Holding AG, Neckarsulm, Germany, supervises all activities of the IT system houses in the northern / eastern, central, and southern regions of Germany and in Austria;
• Bechtle Managed Services AG, Neckarsulm, Germany, supervises all outsourcing services;
• Bechtle Holding Schweiz AG, Rotkreuz, Switzerland, responsible for the activities of the Swiss IT system houses, the trading activities of the ARP Datacon companies, and the licensing business of the Comsoft direct companies; and
• Bechtle direkt Holding AG, Neckarsulm, Germany, supervises all trading activities of Bechtle direct companies.

The above presentation of the legal structure of Bechtle AG reflects the situation on the reporting date and differs slightly from the structure as of the balance sheet date due to name changes. As of the registration in the commercial register on 8 January 2009, PSB Aktiengesellschaft für Programmierung und Systemberatung was renamed Bechtle Managed Services AG.

The structure of Bechtle AG is consistently aligned with the strategy

The legally independent subsidiaries are arranged under the second holding level. Most of the German and Austrian subsidiaries are structured as “GmbH” or “GmbH & Co. KG”, and most of the Swiss subsidiaries as “AG”. The legal structure of the companies in other countries is similar to that of the “GmbH”. Bechtle AG holds 100 per cent of the interests in all subsidiaries, either directly or by means of investment companies. By completing the squeeze-out procedure in August 2008, Bechtle AG acquired all interests in PSB AG. In November 2008, Bechtle AG acquired the minority interests in Buyitdirect.com N.V., which had existed in the fiscal year 2007.

The objective of this two-level holding structure is to relieve the decentralised subsidiaries of the bulk of administrative and cross-company work and bundle competencies and resources, thereby realising synergies and achieving economies of scale in the fields of purchasing and logistics.

By means of the largely completed restructuring of the group into a strategic holding organisation Bechtle has established an important precondition for the company’s successful future development. Nevertheless, the legal structure of the Bechtle Group does not yet fully map the company’s management and leadership structure. The leadership structure is predominantly aligned with the needs of the operational business. In the medium run, the legal structure is to be largely synchronised with the management structure.