About

HERITAGE B is a family-owned industrial holding with presently two business activities, Teka and THIELMANN, and intends to grow by setting up more business activities in the near future. Within less than seven years, HERITAGE B was able to build a cutting-edge legal team based in the two locations of Zug and Madrid. It set up its legal department in 2012 with the hiring of its first chief legal officer, and since 2018, the legal, governance and compliance department is led by the group chief legal and compliance officer (GCLO), Christian Haitz. A team of talented lawyers support Haitz and the senior corporate counsel, which consist of legal counsel and IP specialist, Maria Melgarejo, legal counsel, Amalia Carrillo and junior legal counsel, Georgita Rumenova. The team of lawyers is supported by Andrea Giglio, executive assistant to the GCLCO and paralegal, Silvia Ballesteros. The operational legal responsibilities are delegated to two key account senior corporate counsel, based at the headquarters of the business activities. This allows a customer-centric, business-orientated focus on the two business activities which operate in very different businesses: Teka in the business-to-consumer kitchen and bath equipment and THIELMANN in the business-to-business industrial stainless-steel container business. In 2018, HERITAGE B’s legal team was heavily involved in a group-wide restructuring exercise, which involved a re-negotiation of an existing syndicated loan in Spain in parallel to the preparation of a lucrative high yield bond. As the company has grown historically, mostly driven by local dynamics, the legal team has invested a great deal of energy in structuring the group and the business. ‘This includes streamlining the corporate landscape by supporting the dissolution of a business activity division, divesting certain businesses and entities, carving out certain operations into dedicated entities and dissolving obsolete entities. In doing so, the group sharpened its corporate profile’, explains Haitz. To ensure this ongoing alignment, Haitz has decided to hold an annual two-day legal strategy summit, first held in December 2018 in Switzerland with great success. ‘This strategic retreat allows the team to define, refine and adjust its departmental strategy and ensure its alignment with the group’s and the business activities’ strategies. The legal department is working with high intensity on the implementation of legal technology initiatives and embraces standardisation to dedicate its resources to non-standard problems – this is where the legal department can truly add value to the business!’, he explains.