How Reinhold built the fortune
Würth's fortune comes from the Würth Group, the family business he inherited in very small form and expanded over several decades into the world's leading distributor of fastening and assembly products. The company sells screws, bolts, anchors, tools, chemicals and workshop supplies to tradespeople, car repair shops, construction firms and industrial customers. It is privately owned through family foundations, so the value of the business is not set by a stock market.
The model that made the company large is direct selling at scale. Rather than relying on retailers, Würth built up a large force of sales representatives who visit customers on site and restock their supplies. The products are individually inexpensive, but customers buy them constantly, and a broad catalog of tens of thousands of items allows the representatives to supply almost everything a workshop needs. Würth also opened branch shops for tradespeople and later added online ordering.
Growth abroad began in the 1960s, starting with a subsidiary in the Netherlands, and the group went on to set up or buy companies across Europe, the Americas and Asia. Today it consists of hundreds of companies in more than 80 countries. The family's holding in this group is the source of Würth's wealth.
Companies and holdings
The Würth Group is divided into two main parts:
- Würth Line, the original business selling fastening and assembly materials directly to trade and industrial customers
- Allied Companies, a set of businesses in related fields such as electrical wholesale, tools, electronics and financial services
One notable electronics subsidiary is Würth Elektronik, which makes printed circuit boards and electronic components. The group's ownership sits in several family trusts, an arrangement designed to keep it independent and to prevent it from being broken up among heirs. Reinhold Würth stepped back from operational management in 1994, and his daughter Bettina Würth has chaired the group's advisory board since 2006, while he holds the title of honorary chairman of the supervisory board of the family trusts.
Early life and career
Reinhold Würth was born in April 1935 in Öhringen, in the southwestern German state of Baden-Württemberg. In 1945 his father, Adolf Würth, founded a screw wholesale business in the nearby town of Künzelsau. Reinhold left school at 14 to become the firm's first apprentice, and he travelled the region with his father selling screws to workshops and builders.
Adolf Würth died in 1954, when Reinhold was 19, and the son took over a company with only a couple of employees and modest sales. He expanded steadily, hiring sales staff and widening the product range, and he opened the first foreign branch in 1962. Over the following decades sales grew into the billions of euros and the workforce to tens of thousands. Würth later became an honorary professor and taught entrepreneurship at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, and he founded an institute there for entrepreneurship research.
Philanthropy and public life
Würth is one of Germany's leading art collectors. The Würth Collection, begun in the 1960s, holds many thousands of works, from late medieval painting to modern and contemporary art. Much of it is displayed free of charge in museums the group has built, including the Museum Würth at the company's headquarters in Künzelsau and the Kunsthalle Würth in Schwäbisch Hall, as well as in art forums at subsidiaries in several countries. In 2011 he bought the Darmstadt Madonna, a celebrated painting by Hans Holbein the Younger, which is shown in a former church in Schwäbisch Hall.
Through the Würth Foundation, set up in 1987, he supports education, science, art and culture, including a school and music programs in his home region. In 2008 he paid a fine in a German tax case, a matter that drew wide press coverage at the time. He remains a well-known figure in German business circles and regularly comments on economic policy and the role of family-owned companies. In 2024 he wrote to employees in Germany urging them not to vote for the far-right AfD party, a letter that drew national attention.