Wortmann acquires ara shares in a+w shoes
Published: 30 June, 2011
With the beginning of the new business year on 1st June 2011, the Wortmann Group, Detmold, has acquired all the shares of the ara Group Lagenfeld in a+w shoes GmbH & Co. KG. This makes Wortmann now sole shareholders of a+w shoes – subject to the expected approval of the Federal Cartel Office. a+w sells its shoe collections under the brand name of Jana and focuses its activities on the comfort shoe sector.
Wortmann and ara, both among the leading shoe manufacturers in Europe, announce that this step was taken due to the increasingly narrowing restrictions of cartel law for joint ventures. Insights gained from the negotiations for the originally planned Salamander joint venture had shown that joint ventures where the partners are also active in the same sector, will be facing increasing antitrust risks in future. This is substantiated by a number of decisions of the Federal Cartel Office in the recent past. The current partners believe that this decision helps to ensure the required entrepreneurial freedom in order to guaranteed continuous success of a+w.


