At the 2025 VALUExBRK event in downtown Omaha, Joachim Grube-Nagel, the CEO of Detlev Louis Motorrad-Vertriebsgesellschaft mbH, delivered a personal account of his company’s decade-long journey under the Berkshire Hathaway umbrella. Louis Motorrad, a leading German retailer of motorcycle gear and accessories, was acquired by Berkshire in 2015. The acquisition marked Berkshire Hathaway’s only direct investment in Germany to date.
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From Family-Owned to Berkshire-Owned
Grube-Nagel began by acknowledging the initial apprehension that comes when a 70-year-old family business is acquired by a foreign investor. “I was uneasy when the news reached me,” he admitted. But what followed was, by his account, a decade of growth, autonomy, and mutual respect.
Louis Motorrad now operates about 90 brick-and-mortar locations and 15 online shops, serving customers across Europe with over $400 million in annual revenue and 2,300 employees.
Five Pillars of the Berkshire Relationship
Grube-Nagel distilled his experience with Berkshire Hathaway into five key themes: trust, appreciation, rules, continuity, and values.
Trust:
From day one, Berkshire placed deep trust in the Louis management team. “The number of approval-required transactions in my contract significantly decreased,” he noted. This hands-off style enabled him and his team to operate with entrepreneurial independence, what he calls “temporary entrepreneurs.”
Specifically he notes:
The first word that makes me smile is trust. Berkshire has shown immense trust in our management team. Since we joined Berkshire Hathaway, the number of transactions that require prior approval under my contract has dropped sharply. This lets us work as entrepreneurs, or as I like to say, temporary entrepreneurs - exactly what Berkshire expects.
We schedule only a few formal meetings with Berkshire each year, yet we can reach any member of the team whenever needed. It is an ideal way to work.
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