Theodor Maurer (48) has been appointed to the Management Board of Linde Material Handling GmbH with effect from January 1, 2008. Theodor Maurer will be responsible for sales. In particular, he will drive forward the expansion of the after-sales and service business. He succeeds Georg Silbermann, who is to leave Linde of his own accord after four successful years of service, to devote himself to new professional challenges outside the group.

Gordon Riske, CEO of Linde Material Handling and COO of the KION Group, said "We are delighted that Theodor Maurer is joining our management team. He has many years of experience in sales and after-sales service via dealerships as well as via branch networks. He was responsible for a very successful multi-brand strategy in the market and has developed and implemented extensive service offerings. This makes him an excellent successor to Georg Silbermann, whom we would like to thank very much for his commitment to Linde Material Handling.”

Theodor Maurer, who has recently been working for a number of well-known management consultancy firms, previously held various executive positions within the commercial vehicle business of Daimler AG for more than 20 years. From 2002 to 2006, he was a member of the Management Board of EvoBus GmbH, where he was responsible for global sales of the various bus brands in the Daimler Group. Prior to that, Mr. Maurer, who graduated as an industrial engineer, was responsible for the Europe-wide introduction of telematic services and the European marketing of Daimler trucks. Theodor Maurer is married and has three children.

The company

Linde Material Handling GmbH, Aschaffenburg (Germany), is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of forklift trucks and warehouse equipment. Linde Material Handling has 12,500 employees throughout the world and achieved annual sales in 2006 of around 2.6 billion euro. Linde Material Handling is a KION Group company. With its three brands, Linde, STILL and OM, KION is the market leader in Europe for industrial trucks and world number 2 in its industry sector. In fiscal 2006, the KION Group achieved sales of over 4.0 billion euro with more than 20,000 employees.