Erich Sixt, chief executive of Sixt, will hand over management of the car rental firm in June to his sons Alexander and Konstantin.
He will resign from the management board after 50 years at the helm of the company, which he transformed from a local car rental service to one of the world’s leading hire firms with sales of more than €3.3 billion.
Erich, 76, will join the supervisory board, where he plans to serve as chairman.
The future co-chief executives together bring nearly 30 years of experience working for the Sixt Group. They have been members of the management board since 2015.
Erich and his wife Regine Sixt built up the business from a Munich-based family car rental business, which he took over from his father in 1969.
It now has 8,500 employees and is present in about 110 countries.
Alexander (41) and Konstantin Sixt (38) joined the group in 2009 and 2005 respectively (pictured below).
Friedrich Joussen, chairman of the supervisory board, said: “The supervisory board is following the clear mandate to recruit the best candidates for the future of the company for this responsible management role.
“Alexander and Konstantin Sixt have impressively demonstrated more than once in recent years that they are ideally suited and qualified for this task.”
Erich added: “Over the past few years, Alexander and Konstantin have shown through their hard work, energy and passion as well as their impressive successes that they are prepared – even in economically challenging times – to fight for this company and to lead it successfully into the future.
“Sixt has repeatedly proven its immense will to grow and succeed over the past years and decades and has thus developed to its current size and market strength.”
Alexander and Konstantin commented: “We are facing up to this challenge with a great sense of joy and determination, but also with deep humility, gratitude, and respect for the life’s work of our father Erich Sixt and our mother Regine Sixt, as well as for our responsibility to our employees.”