ElringKlinger AG
Company overview
ElringKlinger AG is a German Aktiengesellschaft (public stock corporation) registered with the commercial register (Handelsregister) at the district court (Amtsgericht) of Stuttgart under number HRB 361242. Its registered office is at Max-Eyth-Str. 2, 72581 Dettingen an der Erms, Baden-Württemberg. The Handelsregister records the company’s status as active. ElringKlinger AG develops, manufactures and sells technical and chemical products, in particular sealing systems, sealing materials, plastics components and lightweighting assemblies, mainly for the automotive industry, and is increasingly active in fuel-cell and battery technology for electromobility.
The business traces to a company founded in 1879 by Paul Lechler. A 1994 merger of the automotive sealing operations of Elring and Richard Klinger created ElringKlinger GmbH, and the entity took its current name, ElringKlinger AG, in 2000. Shares of ElringKlinger AG have traded on the Frankfurt and Stuttgart stock exchanges since 21 January 2002 (ISIN DE0007856023, WKN 785602, ticker ZIL2), and the stock is a constituent of Deutsche Börse’s SDAX index.
ElringKlinger AG is the parent of the ElringKlinger Group, which supplies sealing, shielding, lightweighting and drivetrain components to automotive original-equipment manufacturers worldwide, alongside a growing fuel-cell and battery-technology business (including its EKPO Fuel Cell Technologies unit). For the 2025 financial year, the Group reported consolidated revenue of approximately EUR 1,641 million, down from EUR 1,803 million in 2024, a decline the company attributed in part to completed divestments. As of 31 March 2026, the Group employed approximately 8,542 people, continuing a multi-year decline in headcount tied to its transformation toward electrified-drivetrain and fuel-cell technology.
Recent leadership changes include the appointment of Thomas Jessulat as Chief Executive Officer effective 1 October 2023, the appointment of Isabelle Damen to the Group Management Board as Chief Financial Officer effective 1 August 2025, and the appointment of Ulrich Zimmer to the Group Management Board as Chief Operating Officer following Reiner Drews’s departure from the Management Board effective 31 March 2026.
Note: this profile’s stored incorporation date (1 January 2018) could not be corroborated against primary Handelsregister records or the company’s own history pages during this review and is not repeated here as verified fact.
- Company fundamentals
- Corporate linkage & group structures
- Digitized company financials
- Firmographics — websites, social profiles, revenue and employee estimates
Shareholders
5
Shareholders of ElringKlinger AG
According to ElringKlinger AG’s own investor relations disclosure, dated 31 December 2025, the Lechler family holds 52.04% of the company’s share capital (63,359,990 no-par-value shares in issue) through a group of private holding and foundation entities, while the remaining 47.96% is held in free float. Historical voting-rights notifications filed under the WpHG (German Securities Trading Act) name entities including Lechler Beteiligungs-GmbH and Paul Lechler Stiftung gGmbH as holders of ElringKlinger AG voting rights; the most recent aggregate figure published by the company at the time of this review is the 52.04% family stake as of 31 December 2025.
Zavia’s stored shareholder register lists five institutional asset managers holding smaller stakes, verified 4 September 2026: Vanguard Tax Managed Fund–Vanguard Developed Markets Index Fund (7.79%), Schwab Fundamental International Small Company Index ETF (4.40%), iShares MSCI EAFE Small Cap ETF (4.05%), College Retirement Equities Fund–Stock Account (2.80%) and Dimensional International Small Cap ETF (1.42%). The stored dataset indicates seven such holdings in total across two result pages, so two further institutional positions are not captured in this profile. These are free-float positions, separate from and smaller than the controlling Lechler family stake.
Ultimate beneficial ownership
Company disclosures identify the Lechler family collectively, rather than a single natural person, as the controlling interest, holding 52.04% of share capital as of 31 December 2025 through several private holding companies and foundations. No source reviewed identifies one natural person with a calculable direct or indirect effective ownership percentage; accordingly, no individual UBO is reported for this profile.
Data availability
Shareholder disclosure for ElringKlinger AG, as a Prime Standard-listed German stock corporation, is major-shareholders-only: WpHG notification rules require disclosure only when voting-rights thresholds are crossed, so the complete share register below those thresholds is not publicly available. The information here should be treated as partial rather than a full share register.
Sources
- ElringKlinger AG, Shareholder Structure — https://elringklinger.de/en/investor-relations/shares/shareholder-structure (data as of 31 December 2025; retrieved 25 September 2026)
- ElringKlinger AG, Stimmrechtsmitteilungen (voting rights notifications) archive — https://www.elringklinger.de/de/investor-relations/mitteilungen/stimmrechtsmitteilungen (retrieved 25 September 2026)
Registry feed — rows exactly as filed with Handelsregister (Commercial Register), including entries the profile above does not cover.
| Shareholder | Type | Holding | Source Document |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vanguard Tax Managed Fund-Vanguard Developed Markets Index Fund | 7.8% | Handelsregister (Commercial Register) | |
| Schwab Strategic Tr-Schwab Fundamental Intl Small Company Idx ETF | 4.4% | Handelsregister (Commercial Register) | |
| iShares MSCI EAFE Small Cap ETF | 4% | Handelsregister (Commercial Register) | |
| College Retirement Equities Fund-Stock Account | 2.8% | Handelsregister (Commercial Register) | |
| Dimensional ETF Trust-Dimensional International Small Cap ETF | 1.4% | Handelsregister (Commercial Register) |
Officers
77
Directors and officers of ElringKlinger AG
ElringKlinger AG operates a two-tier German board structure: a Management Board (Vorstand) responsible for executive management, and a Supervisory Board (Aufsichtsrat) that appoints and oversees the Management Board. Per the company’s own governance pages, the current Management Board comprises four members: Thomas Jessulat (Chief Executive Officer, appointed effective 1 October 2023), Isabelle Damen (Chief Financial Officer, appointed to the Group Management Board effective 1 August 2025), Dirk Willers (Chief Sales Officer) and Ulrich Zimmer (Chief Operating Officer). The Supervisory Board comprises twelve members, chaired by Helmut P. Merch, with six elected by the Annual General Meeting and six elected by the company’s employees; the published board list does not indicate which individuals represent the employee side.
Zavia’s stored officer register for this company contains 77 historical records spanning appointments and resignations back to 2006. Many entries duplicate the same individuals under inconsistent name spellings and generic job-title strings (“Officer”, “Board Member”), and the great majority of records, including several current Management Board members, are flagged with a “resigned” work status despite no resignation date being recorded. Because of this inconsistency, the governance summary above relies on ElringKlinger AG’s own management and supervisory board pages rather than the stored register. The stored data is dated 8 September 2026; the company’s governance pages were retrieved 25 September 2026.
Recent officer changes
- Isabelle Damen appointed to the Group Management Board as Chief Financial Officer, effective 1 August 2025 (company announcement).
- Ulrich Zimmer appointed to the Group Management Board as Chief Operating Officer, succeeding Reiner Drews, who stepped down from the Management Board effective 31 March 2026 (company announcement).
- Thomas Jessulat appointed Chief Executive Officer effective 1 October 2023 (company announcement).
Data availability
Germany’s Handelsregister publishes current legal representatives of registered companies, and as a listed company ElringKlinger AG separately discloses Management Board and Supervisory Board composition on its investor relations website. Nationality and country of residence are not routinely published for board members in these sources and are recorded here as not disclosed.
Sources
- ElringKlinger AG, Management Board — https://elringklinger.de/en/company/management/management-board (retrieved 25 September 2026)
- ElringKlinger AG, Supervisory Board — https://elringklinger.de/en/company/management/supervisory-board (retrieved 25 September 2026)
- ElringKlinger AG, investor relations announcements (CEO/CFO/COO appointments) — https://elringklinger.de/en/investor-relations/announcements (retrieved 25 September 2026)
Registry feed — rows exactly as filed with Handelsregister (Commercial Register), including entries the profile above does not cover.
Group Structure
Group structure of ElringKlinger AG
ElringKlinger AG is the ultimate parent company of the ElringKlinger Group and is itself controlled by the Lechler family through a group of private holding and foundation entities (see the shareholders block); no corporate parent above this family holding structure is identified in the sources reviewed. Zavia’s stored corporate-linkage data lists more than 30 subsidiaries across roughly 20 countries, including Germany, the United States, China, Turkey, the United Kingdom, Italy, South Africa, India, Brazil, South Korea, Hungary, Romania, Canada, Mexico, Spain and France, reflecting the Group’s global manufacturing and sales footprint in sealing, plastics and e-mobility components. None of the stored subsidiary records include ownership or voting percentages, so relationships are described only as corporate links without a disclosed shareholding percentage. Group-level revenue and employee figures cited in the company-description block are consolidated Group figures, not entity-level figures for ElringKlinger AG alone. Zavia data is dated 8 September 2026; the company’s own group-structure page was retrieved 25 September 2026.
Verified corporate relationships
| Entity | Country | Registration number | Relationship | Ownership | Status | Information date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elringklinger Automotive Manufacturing, Inc. | US | MI 800035834 | Subsidiary | Ownership percentage not disclosed | Active | 2026-09-08 |
| ElringKlinger TR Otomotiv Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S. | TR | 28375 | Subsidiary | Ownership percentage not disclosed | Active | 2026-09-08 |
| ElringKlinger Kunststofftechnik GmbH | DE | HRB 301607 (Stuttgart) | Direct subsidiary | Ownership percentage not disclosed | Active | 2026-09-08 |
| Propulsion Technologies Limited | GB | 10338183 | Subsidiary | Ownership percentage not disclosed | Active | 2026-09-08 |
| EKPO Fuel Cell Technologies GmbH | DE | HRB 776664 (Stuttgart) | Direct subsidiary (fuel-cell technology unit) | Ownership percentage not disclosed | Active | 2026-09-08 |
| ElringKlinger Automotive Components (India) Private Limited | IN | 27AABCE7188D1ZK | Subsidiary | Ownership percentage not disclosed | Active | 2026-09-08 |
| ElringKlinger do Brasil | BR | 01576749000144 | Subsidiary | Ownership percentage not disclosed | Active | 2026-09-08 |
| ElringKlinger Korea Co., Ltd. | KR | 6098109980 | Subsidiary | Ownership percentage not disclosed | Active | 2026-09-08 |
The stored dataset lists over 30 subsidiary and related entities in total across the countries named above; this table shows a representative selection rather than the full set already displayed in the profile’s corporate-structure graph.
Recent structural changes
No verified recent acquisitions, disposals or mergers affecting the ElringKlinger Group’s corporate structure were identified from official sources during this review. The company has reported divestments affecting the comparability of 2024 and 2025 Group revenue, but the specific entities divested were not confirmed from a primary source and are therefore not listed here as a structural change.
Data availability
Corporate-linkage information for ElringKlinger AG is partial: the stored dataset confirms subsidiary names, countries and registration numbers but does not include ownership or voting percentages, and individual subsidiary registrations were not independently re-verified against local registries during this review.
Sources
- ElringKlinger AG, Group structure — https://elringklinger.de/en/company/about-elringklinger/group-structure (retrieved 25 September 2026)
Registry feed — rows exactly as filed with Handelsregister (Commercial Register), including entries the profile above does not cover.
Klaus Lechler Familienstiftung
Germany
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Frequently Asked Questions
What does ElringKlinger AG do?
ElringKlinger AG (HRB 361242, Amtsgericht Stuttgart) is a German Aktiengesellschaft based in Dettingen an der Erms that develops, manufactures and sells sealing systems, sealing materials, plastics components, lightweighting parts and, increasingly, fuel-cell and battery technology for the automotive industry and other markets.
Who owns ElringKlinger AG?
As of 31 December 2025, the Lechler family holds 52.04% of ElringKlinger AG's share capital through several private holding and foundation entities, with the remaining 47.96% in free float; publicly available data covers only major/reportable holdings, not the complete share register.
Who is ElringKlinger AG's UBO (Ultimate Beneficial Owner)?
No single natural-person ultimate beneficial owner is identified in official disclosures. The Lechler family is disclosed collectively as the controlling shareholder group (52.04% as of 31 December 2025) through multiple family holding entities and foundations, without a calculable individual percentage for one person.
What is ElringKlinger AG's company registration number?
ElringKlinger AG's registration number is HRB 361242 Stuttgart, filed with Handelsregister (Commercial Register) in Germany. Its current status on the register is active.
Is ElringKlinger AG still an active company?
ElringKlinger AG's status on Handelsregister (Commercial Register) is listed as active.
What is ElringKlinger AG's registered address?
The registered address on file for ElringKlinger AG is Dettingen an der Erms, Germany.
What is ElringKlinger AG's revenue?
The ElringKlinger Group reported consolidated revenue of approximately EUR 1,641 million for the 2025 financial year, down from EUR 1,803 million in 2024; this is a Group-level, not entity-level, figure.
Is ElringKlinger AG listed on a stock exchange?
ElringKlinger AG shares have traded on the Frankfurt and Stuttgart stock exchanges since 21 January 2002 under ISIN DE0007856023 (ticker ZIL2, WKN 785602) and are a constituent of Deutsche Börse's SDAX index.
Who are the officers/directors of ElringKlinger AG?
The current Management Board (Vorstand) comprises Thomas Jessulat (CEO), Isabelle Damen (CFO), Dirk Willers (CSO) and Ulrich Zimmer (COO). The Supervisory Board (Aufsichtsrat) has 12 members chaired by Helmut P. Merch, six elected by shareholders and six by employees.
Does ElringKlinger AG have a parent company or subsidiaries?
ElringKlinger AG is the ultimate parent of the ElringKlinger Group, with subsidiaries recorded in roughly 20 countries including the US, China, Turkey, the UK, Italy, India and Brazil; ownership percentages for these subsidiaries are not disclosed in available sources.
Can Zavia monitor changes to ElringKlinger AG's ownership over time?
This profile reflects a point-in-time snapshot from Handelsregister (Commercial Register). Zavia's monitoring API can track changes to ElringKlinger AG's registered shareholders, officers, and group structure going forward, flagging updates as they're filed rather than requiring a manual recheck.
Can I access ElringKlinger AG's data through an API?
Yes. Zavia's API connects directly to official government ownership registries across 195 countries and territories, including Germany, so records like ElringKlinger AG's registration, shareholder, UBO, and group-structure data can be queried programmatically instead of viewed one page at a time.
Where does this company information come from, and how current is it?
This record is sourced directly from Handelsregister (Commercial Register) and was last synced on 8 September 2026.