• CEO Dr. Christoph Wolff retires at his own request
  • Dr. Jan Withag appointed new CEO
  • Marc Van Herreweghe becomes member of the Supervisory Board

Erlangen, 6 October 2011 The Supervisory Board of Solar Millennium AG (ISIN DE0007218406) has made changes to its Executive Board after restructuring the US business. The commission chose to comply on Thursday with the request of Dr. Christoph Wolff to retire immediately from his position as CEO on the best of terms. Dr. Wolff remains on friendly terms with the company and will continue to advise it. The board appointed current Member of the Executive Board Dr. Jan Withag as the new CEO.

In regard to his decision, Dr. Wolff stated, "Given the current market conditions, the agreement with solarhybrid is the best way to secure the value of our investment in the US and enable Solar Millennium to participate in future revenue streams there. Creating this security was the mutual goal of the Executive and Supervisory Boards. We've achieved this and I feel this is the right time for me to hand over the chairmanship to another."

Chairman of the Supervisory Board Helmut Pflaumer thanked Dr. Wolff for his remarkable commitment and his work adapting the company strategy to fit current market requirements, improving the technology basis, and entering new growth markets like the Middle East. "Dr. Wolff piloted Solar Millennium through some difficult times. We regret his decision, but we respect it and wish him all the best for his future", stated Helmut Pflaumer.

At the same time, he explained, "We're pleased that, with Dr. Withag a personality will take on the role of leading the company, who was an integral part of the successful contract negotiations for the US business together with Dr. Wolff and he will give us a powerful impetus for the inner coherence and strategic focus of the company on new growth markets."

Dr. Withag will also keep his former board responsibilities for new markets, technology, personnel and organisational development for the time being.

Solar Millennium AG has had a new Member of the Supervisory Board since Thursday, the Belgian industrial manager and Deputy Chairman of the supervisory body Marc Van Herreweghe. The engineering and law graduate has been working in various management positions since 1993 at the world's second largest tobacco conglomorate, British American Tobacco (BAT). Mr Van Herreweghe is currently Head of Operations at BAT in Germany and head of the company's production in Western Europe. He has considerable experience in international industrial projects.

Within the Supervisory Board of Solar Millennium AG, Marc Van Herreweghe has taken up the position of Hannes Kuhn, who retired from all offices at the end of September for personal reasons. 

About Solar Millennium AG:

Solar Millennium AG (ISIN DE0007218406), Erlangen, is a company that operates globally in the renewable energy sector, with its main focus on solar power plants. Together with its subsidiaries and associates, the Company specializes in solar-thermal power plants, particularly parabolic trough plants, and has taken a global leadership position in this field.

Solar Millennium is striving to further extend its expertise in this area with the aim of achieving and securing sustainable technology leadership. The Company covers all important business sectors along the value chain for solar power plants: from project development and financing to technology and the turnkey construction and operation of power plants. Solar Millennium realized Europe’s first parabolic trough power plants in Spain as well as the first modern parabolic trough solar field in Egypt. Additional projects are planned around the world with a total capacity of several thousand megawatts. The current regional focus is on Spain, the Middle East and North Africa.