The new Renk boss Sagel promises: « We are able to deliver. »

The new Renk boss Büxt likes to go out. When meetings last too long, Alexander Sagel is drawn to the nearby factory halls. There the 54-year-old raves about the precision work of his team and praises the technological pioneering role of the company. He greets employees with a handshake. The manager wants to know what is going well and where it hooks. The man from Hesse wears jeans and is often spotted with a rank jacket instead of a jacket. Sagel is also well received in employee and trade union circles. He has arrived in Augsburg.

Since February, the manager has been running the tank and ship gear builder that has been listed. Sagel was the desired candidate of the former Renk boss Susanne Wiegand. She had shaken up the company, some say « kissed », and successfully led back to the stock exchange. Wiegand knew Sagel from times together at the Düsseldorf armaments Group Rheinmetall and initially brought him in April 2024 as a board member responsible for the operational business to Augsburg before the tall man was to become her successor.

The new Renk boss was once a decathlete

Sagel is an open person who comes to speak of his sporting life on his own. Growing up in the once snowy northern Hesse, he first pulled to the cross -country skiing, later he ended up in the decathlon. It is reasonable to assume that such a athlete is a very versatile person. The professional life of Sagel confirms this: after studying material research and a doctorate in the USA And at the University of Ulm he stayed in the Baden-Württemberg city and started in the then Daimler research center on the Eselsberg, a great time for him: « You can sometimes see the mountains from Eselsberg. Ulm is a great city. »

In the course of the later merger of the Stuttgart car manufacturer with the US company Chrysler, Sagel went to the USA to search for the synergies between the group with the star and the American brand, like many colleagues from Germany. That was an educational time for the young engineer, since he recognized how different people from the two cultural circles approach entrepreneurial tasks: « German spend a lot of time to define the perfect solution theoretically and practical before they are usually starting and mostly successful. » Americans, on the other hand, immediately started after a manageable preparation time and calculated setbacks.

Sagel returned to Germany to spend “an exciting time” in production research in engine development in Stuttgart. Many Daimlerians remain loyal to the group, which is now called Mercedes-Benz. Today’s Renk boss chose a different discipline after seven years, probably the hardest in the automotive all-around: he switched to a supplier, the automotive division of the armaments giant Rheinmetall. « Now I suddenly had to do with components, pistons and lubricants. » The cost pressure in the industry was already enormous at the time. Sagel remembers: « At price negotiations with car corporations, it was about two places behind the comma of a euro amount. » Such small amounts add up for quantities of six or seven million.

The Renk boss used to work for Rheinmetall

The time of suppliers, in which Sagel was also confronted with restructuring and working closings, « trained » the entrepreneur. He knows how important the intensive and trusting contact with employee representatives is. This will certainly benefit him at Renk, as well as his knowledge of industry: the father of the family already joined the defense industry before it emerged from the dirty corner and became the boom industry. At Rheinmetall, a change to the military area was obvious. Sagel initially worked in the « weapon and ammunition » area and then in the electronics division.

In the end, it was Renk’s radiance as the global market and technology leader who moved him to the company with 4,000 employees in Augsburg, including 1850 in the Swabian headquarters. In an interview with our editor, he confirmed that Renk wants to increase annual turnover from 1.14 billion to two billion euros by 2028, after all, the demand for tank and ship-driven is immensely. The CEO announces: « Renk will not stop with sales of two billion euros. » And he assured: « The focus of growth is our location in Augsburg. Here we are building further employment, although not to the extent as in previous years. »

Renk can build more gearbox

The manufacturing capacities can be further increased. Preliminary products for the tank and ship gears are also manufactured in the Westphalian plant in Rheine. The production can also be expanded here. Sagel therefore says to the address of important clients such as Germany: « It is not up to us. We are able to deliver. » If you order a gearbox for an existing armored model from Renk today, you can get it in a period of « under twelve months ». In the event of new developments, customers have to expect two to three years.

Sagel and the Emmerich Schiller, a former Mercedes manager responsible for production on the Renk board, are doing everything possible to get up to production: « We will build significantly more armored and naval gear this year and also repair more old ones. » The managers do not give specific figures. The Renk men look with excitement at the NATO summit in June. Then it could become clearer how many other fighting units the Bundeswehr has to create. This in turn provides information about how many tanks and gears have to be ordered for the companion. Sagel and Schiller have already had different scenarios calculated: « We are prepared for all eventualities. » It does not seem to fail at Augsburg if Germany wants to become defense again.