Former baby food producer falls for Malta

Perseverance and hard work are the keys to success, the 75-year-old former president of baby food giant Milupa said yesterday.

Interviewed by The Times, August Kobler-Reinfeldt, who was appointed president of the international baby milk producing company at the age of just 39, said the secret to his success was simple: "Hard work, motivating your staff, being fair and more interested in finding solutions than in creating problems."

Mr Kobler-Reinfeldt is retired and spends most of his time in Malta but still does some management consultancy work.

"I came here with my wife on a cruise in 1995 and was hooked. We decided to come for a longer holiday as a day was not enough, so we came for two weeks. On going back home, we decided to sell a holiday home we had in the Alps and buy a flat here.

"So now we spend six months here, three months in Switzerland and another three travelling the world," he said.

It is the hospitality of the Maltese people that really landed him in Malta.

"We were at Mqabba and we bumped into this family, who invited us to their home and introduced us to the whole family. When we bought a small car, they gave us a mobile phone as they feared we might need it in case we were involved in some accident. When the car broke down, they were there in force within a few minutes.

"One no longer finds this kind of hospitality anywhere in the world. We have been around quite a bit and I can say we have more friends here than we have in Switzerland or Germany.

"Indeed, it is the people that make this place so unique," he said.

Mr Kobler-Reinfeldt has written his autobiography, An Exciting Life, which will be published by Midsea books shortly.

"I chose the title because it describes my life perfectly. I grew up in a very modest family. My father could not afford to pay the university fees, so I took up an apprenticeship in a bank and learnt the fundamental basis of finance and commerce. I placed second in the final exam for which over 100 students sat, and that showed I was able to make it.

"The compulsory military service gave me an opportunity to hone my leadership skills and I became an officer at the age of 21, which was quite unusual," he said.

Aged 24, he migrated to Chile, where he worked as an auditor for a big American company. Later he worked for PriceWaterhouse and moved on to work as general manager of Pfizer, a German pharmaceutical company employing 1,200 people. He was 29 at the time.

From Pfizer he joined the German Quendt Group, which owed the majority of shares in BMW, Varta and Milupa. Initially, he was on the management board of Milupa but within two years he was appointed president.

"The business expanded because I was always looking to make the business grow. Today's attitude with most companies is the opposite, to shrink, cut down and hive off. I sought to create more jobs and the turnover of the company increased from 100 million German marks to one billion," Mr Kobler-Reinfeldt said.

Under his chairmanship, Milupa developed a kind of infant food that could be given to infants born with a rare metabolic condition.

"We did not develop this to make money but I felt children who could not cope without special nutrition had to be supported.

"It was an important development and we used to ship the milk by giving it to pilots at Frankfurt airport, with whom we had an arrangement. When a hospital in Sydney needed such milk, we dispatched it on the next flight.

"But you find hurdles all the way and when America suddenly stopped the importation of such milk because of some international dispute about trade, I sent a team of scientists to explain to the American customs department and try to convince them about the importance of such milk to children.

"But they remained unmoved and I ended up writing to President Ronald Reagan, who intervened personally and the milk was allowed in again," Mr Kobler-Reinfeldt said.

It is a small example of how determination can lead to solving problems. When everyone else gives up, you have to rise above the challenge and make things work again. That is the key to success, he said.