Thomas Toepfer appointed STILL GmbH's new CFO

• Karl-Heinz Birkner to take on a new corporate role at KION

Wiesbaden/Hamburg, 08 April 2011 - Dr Thomas Toepfer (38) has been appointed to the management board of STILL GmbH with effect from 1 June 2011.
He will be STILL's CFO and will also assume the role of labour relations director. Thomas Toepfer will take over from Karl-Heinz Birkner (54), who will return to KION Group head office at his own request after the successful restructuring of STILL's financial management. Karl-Heinz Birkner will head up the central accounting, internal audit and tax departments and will report to Harald Pinger, CFO of the KION Group.

Thomas Toepfer is highly qualified for the role and was recently employed as CFO of Karstadt Warenhaus GmbH. Prior to that he was head of Group Controlling at both Arcandor AG (2005 to 2008) and Hapag Lloyd AG (2004 to 2005), after working as a management consultant with McKinsey (1999 to 2004).

Bert-Jan Knoef, CEO of STILL, said: 'We are very sad that Karl-Heinz Birkner has decided, for personal reasons, to return to Wiesbaden and would like to thank him for his outstanding work at STILL. He has made a huge personal contribution to restructuring STILL's financial functions and was extremely successful in putting the company's financial management on a new long-term stable footing. Thomas Toepfer will build on this foundation and contribute to the ongoing success of the company. Given his extensive experience in a range of financial management positions working for a variety of highly customer-focused businesses, he is extremely well prepared for the role at STILL with its strong sales and service orientation. We greatly look forward to working with Thomas Toepfer.'

Harald Pinger, CFO of the KION Group, highlighted Karl-Heinz Birkner's huge personal input in reshaping and efficiently reorganising STILL GmbH's financial management. 'He was a highly successful CFO and lead STILL through the worst crisis ever to hit the industrial trucks sector. Karl-Heinz Birkner has held a number of executive and board-level positions in various companies within the KION Group over the past 25 years. I am very pleased that he will be taking over management of key corporate financial functions at KION - and with Thomas Toepfer on board, we have another highly experienced CFO for STILL GmbH who will drive forward the success of the brand.'

The Company
STILL GmbH is based in Hamburg, Germany, and is a leading supplier of intelligent solutions for managing companies' intralogistics, which covers all their internal flows of materials and information. It employs more than 6,000 people worldwide and generated revenue in excess of EUR1.2 billion in 2010. STILL is a member of the KION Group, whose Linde, STILL, Fenwick, OM, and Baoli brands make it the leader in the European market for industrial trucks, the second-largest in its sector worldwide and the largest international supplier in China. The KION Group employed about 20,000 people and generated revenue of around EUR3.5 billion in the 2010 financial year.

For further information please contact
Michael Hauger
Head of Communications and Investor Relations
Tel.: +49 (0) 611 770 655
E-mail: michael.hauger@kiongroup.com

Frank Kopfinger
Head of Investor Relations
Tel.: +49 (0) 611 770 220
E-mail: frank.kopfinger@kiongroup.com