Following the reshuffle on the Supervisory Board, Kontron has issued an ad hoc release announcing that S&T Management Board member Hannes Niederhauser has taken up a position on the Kontron Management Board as Chief Operating Officer.

As reported yesterday, S&T has acquired just under 30% of Kontron shares. In the meantime, a business presentation has appeared on S&T's homepage which already shows the plans for a merger of Kontron and S&T.

S&T's turnover in 2016 is expected to amount to 480 million euros (Kontron: just under 400 million euros). S&T generates around one third of its business with proprietary hardware for markets such as industry, infotainment, medicine and smart energy and two thirds with software, where it acts as an IT service provider focusing on cloud services and security. S&T even made the leap into the TecDAX in September 2016. The fact that the company is nevertheless less well-known in Germany is due to the fact that the focus of its business activities is in Eastern Europe.

With Kontron, S&T wants to acquire a third mainstay in the embedded systems sector. The calculation: Kontron and S&T serve similar customers in the IoT and industrial segment, with Kontron also bringing additional sectors into the business, such as communications and aviation. Kontron would also expand S&T's business geographically to America and a little to Asia.

Kontron should become profitable again in the course of 2017 - not only through cost savings, but also through additional value creation. This is to be achieved by integrating S&T software into Kontron products. At the same time, administrative costs at Kontron are to be reduced. In the area of production, closer cooperation with the existing partner Ennoconn is planned.

Ennoconn will also play a key role in financing the planned Kontron takeover, with the Taiwanese company increasing its investment in S&T. The operational merger of Kontron and S&T is scheduled to begin as early as January 2017. The Management Board position for Hannes Niederhauser is the first step on this path. If things go according to his schedule, Kontron shares will disappear from the stock exchange in June 2017.