Martin Harren is a trained surgeon but runs the family-owned shipping group Harren Group, which specializes in heavy loads – and he has now added another string to his bow as co-owner of local football club, SV Werder Bremen.
Alongside seven other local companies and private individuals, Harren has bought shares for a total of EUR 38m as part of a capital injection for the club, according to a press release from Sportverein Werder Bremen.
The investment gives the consortium an 18% shareholding and two seats on the board of the football club, which plays in the 1st Bundesliga and was founded in 1899.
Under the slogan ”Werder must remain Werder!” the club has sought to secure capital from regional forces with a long-term interest in the club which do not want to interfere in day-to-day operations.
”The funds provided increase our capital and give us larger economic agency. We have agreed with our new partners to use the money to strengthen the core business of football at Werder Bremen,” says Klaus Filbry, Managing Director of SV Werder Bremen.
Harren decided to leave medicine behind in 2003 to join the family business founded by his father, Peter Harren.
The Harren Group specializes in the transportation of large and heavy loads. This is done through the specialist shipping companies Intermarine and SAL, which are part of the Jumbo-SAL-Alliance with Dutch specialist shipping company Jumbo.
During his time in shipping, Martin Harren has steered the firm through a significant crisis in the heavy lift segment, which triggered both bankruptcies and mergers at other firms — but Harren Group has survived and grown steadily.
Harren’s co-investors in SV Werder Bremen are Frank Baumann, Arnd Brüning, Jens Christophers, Marco Fuchs, Klaus Meier, Harm Ohlmeyer and Kurt Zech.
Harren is not the first German shipping profile to invest in a football club. Transport magnate Klaus-Michael Kühne, who controls the logistics group Kuhne+Nagel and is a major shareholder in the container shipping company Hapag-Lloyd and the airline Lufthansa, owns around 15% of the Hamburg club Hamburger Sport-Verein.
(Translated using DeepL with additional editing by Catherine Brett)
