Postwar Restructuring
The situation facing the company in 1945 was somewhat worse than it had been in 1918. Many of the domestic companies lay in ruins and the mining and production works beyond the Elbe had to be given up. After the war, MG's main business for a time was in rubble--Trümmer-Verwertungs-Gesellschaft, in which MG was one of three shareholders, was concerned with recovering rubble, with demolition work, and with recycling rubble--and the manufacturing of roofing felt and jam substitute based on turnips.
Denazification courts--set up by the Allied victors to dismantle all Nazi organizations and get rid of Nazis from key positions as quickly as possible--and decartelization proceedings resulted in major changes to MG's board of directors and supervisory board by 1948. Shortly before this, on the occasion of the German currency reform, MG had lowered its capital, by a ratio of ten to eight, to DM 56 million.
For the company's 75th anniversary, the American military authorities returned to MG the building which they had used as their administrative headquarters for 11 years. Under Alfred Petersen, the firm's technical adviser, the emphasis was put on consolidating and extending the group's technical capabilities. LURGI's research laboratories were expanded. The company pursued its own development program and adopted new processes and areas of work. Lurgi Paris S.A., founded in 1960, was the first branch to be established abroad.
Under the leadership of Hellmut Ley, likewise a technical expert, MG once again acquired an international presence between 1961 and 1973. Ley's name is associated with the extension of the company's smelter capacities. MG subsidiaries or affiliates involved in many of the projects included Ruhr-Zink, Datteln, and "Berzelius" Metallhütten Gesellschaft in Duisburg.
In these years of strong economic growth, MG saw its work force climb to 30,000 in 1961, expanded its business in the transport sector, and became involved in exploratory navigation. In the processing sector, piston manufacturing installations were established in South Africa and in Brazil.
The second half of the 1960s saw MG turn its attention more to publicity. Together with the Metallstatistik and the regular publication of scientific research essays in Mitteilungen aus dem Arbeitsbereich, the journal MG Information came into existence in 1966 and appeared in English for several years.
The "disorganized giant," as the Financial Times once called MG, referring to the lack of organizational and divisional structures which the rapid diversification of the group would seem to have necessitated, underwent significant changes in 1971. All MG enterprises and subsidiaries were divided into five divisions: metals processing, plant construction, chemicals, transport, and communications. A functional reorganization also took place in the three central fields of finance, staff and administration, and technology. This structure would last almost 20 years.
In the same year, MG became the first non-British company to be admitted to the London Metal Exchange. The company MG Ltd. was founded for this purpose and the company's historical connection with England was reestablished.
Karl Gustaf Ratjen Era, 1973-84
Ley died suddenly at the end of the year 1973 and with the appointment of Karl Gustaf Ratjen as chairman of the board, the group found itself with a lawyer and banker at the helm. Ratjen's decade of leadership was marked by strong growth in MG's international activities. In Germany, this period was characterized by recession. In the mining sector, the group ventured into large projects, some in distant locations, such as northern Canada, Thailand, and Papua New Guinea, where copper, lead, and zinc deposits were opened up by group companies, often in conjunction with international partners. The year 1978 saw the founding of Metallgesellschaft of Australia (Pty) Ltd., followed by Metallgesellschaft Corporation in the United States in 1978. The LURGI companies won large contracts from China and the USSR in the 1970s to build petrochemical plants.
The introduction of the codetermination law in 1978 led to the election of employee representatives to the supervisory board. W. Guth of the Deutsche Bank succeeded Hermann Richter after almost two decades as the head of this board. Guth was initially appointed for one year, and later for a further five. Between Guth's two periods in office, H. Friderichs presided for five years. Kuwait Petroleum Company became an MG shareholder in 1980-81 with a 20 percent holding.
In 1981, MG's centenary year, Ratjen defined the company's new aims as increased involvement in raw materials and an accompanying increase in trading activity, engineering services, and specialty chemicals for processing industries. MG made several divestments, including that of VDM. The closure of the Heddernheim works followed in 1982.