Martin Kind

Martin Kind
Born	1944-04-28April 28, 1944 (age 82)
Nationality	German
Occupation	Entrepreneur, football executive
Company	KIND Group; Hannover 96
Title	Chairman of the supervisory board, Hannover 96
Children	2

Martin Kind (born April 28, 1944) is a German entrepreneur. He built KIND, a hearing aid shop founded by his parents near Hanover, into a national chain of hearing care and eyewear stores. He is also known for his long and disputed leadership of the football club Hannover 96.

Kind took over the family business in 1970. When it was valued as part of a 2025 sale, it ran about 650 stores and employed about 3,000 people. Before then he had passed ownership and day-to-day management to his elder son, Alexander Kind. In June 2025 the Danish hearing healthcare group Demant agreed to buy the KIND Group for EUR 700 million, its largest acquisition to date. The deal closed in December 2025.

Kind became chairman of Hannover 96 on September 26, 1997. At the time the club was in debt and playing in the third tier. Apart from a break in 2005 and 2006, he led the club's membership association until 2019. From 2006 he was also managing director of the company that runs its professional team. Under him the club returned to the Bundesliga and reached the quarter-finals of the UEFA Europa League in 2012. He is the best-known opponent of German football's 50+1 rule, which limits investor control of clubs. His 2017 application for an exemption that would have let him take control of Hannover 96 was rejected by the Deutsche Fußball Liga (DFL) in July 2018.

His time in charge led to repeated conflict with fans and with the club's members. Opponents won control of the association's supervisory board in 2019. In July 2022 the association removed him as managing director, and in July 2024 the Federal Court of Justice upheld the removal. He then moved to the supervisory board of the professional football company. As of August 2026, dpa describes him as chairman of the supervisory board and as one of the club's financial backers.

Early life and education

Kind was born on April 28, 1944. His parents founded a hearing aid shop in 1952. By the time Kind took it over, it had annual turnover of 200,000 Deutsche Mark and two employees. His father was Werner Kind. In a 2020 interview Kind described his father as "a difficult character" who tried to dictate what he and his two siblings should study. Kind said they refused, and that the lesson he drew was to let his own sons choose their training and careers themselves.

Kind said he played street football as an attacking player until he finished his Abitur. He then did a company apprenticeship with Siemens in Erlangen, Munich and Berlin. Börsen-Zeitung reports that he completed two Siemens apprenticeships before joining the family firm. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung calls him a master hearing aid acoustician.

Career

KIND Hörgeräte, 1970 to 2025

Kind took over his parents' hearing aid business in 1970. Under his leadership it grew from one shop into a chain. His profile as a board member of GLC Glücksburg Consulting describes 1970 as the takeover and founding of KIND Hörgeräte. It says he built it into the KIND Group, with about 2,000 employees and more than 550 stores at one stage, and also built up audifon, a hearing aid manufacturer. When the state of Lower Saxony honoured him in 2018, it put the business at about 700 stores in 14 countries with more than 3,000 employees. The citation also noted that hearing aids had become much smaller and more powerful while the company grew.

In 2014 Handelsblatt called KIND Germany's largest chain of hearing aid stores. The paper reported that Kind's son Alexander, then joint managing director, had persuaded him to run the advertising campaign built around the slogan "Ich hab ein Kind im Ohr" ("I've got a Kind in my ear"). The campaign used celebrities including singer Adel Tawil and actor Michael Degen. "I was sceptical," Kind told the paper. "I could never have imagined the incredible attention the slogan would attract." He credited the campaign with helping the company strengthen its position as German market leader. In the same interview he said the company planned to sell more of its own products as a manufacturer on the world market.

KIND added eyewear in 2016 and began selling its own frames and lenses. Börsen-Zeitung reported in January 2024 that the company was active in 12 countries with about 4,000 employees. It also said annual revenue was approaching the mid three-digit millions of euros. Kind told the paper that higher acceptance of hearing aids meant "we are now at a point where we can grow with high-tech products". He said a stock market listing was possible but not on the agenda.

Handing over to his son

In a joint interview with Focus in May 2020, Kind said Alexander had taken over day-to-day management more than five years earlier. By then Alexander held 90 percent of the company and Kind held 10 percent. "Strictly speaking, Alexander is the owner and not me," Kind said, adding that his son had paid tax on the gift. Both remained managing partners. Kind said he favoured settling an inheritance during one's lifetime despite the high inheritance tax, and that he did not consider putting the assets into a foundation sensible.

Alexander Kind said in the same interview that his father had set clear limits from the start. When he stepped back from operations, he said, his father had announced that he was "now only a spectator" and stuck to it from one day to the next. Kind said nobody believed he could let go, and admitted, "Alexander does it better than I do." When they disagree, he said, his son decides, and he backs the decision "100 percent" in public and "95 percent" in private. At that time the company ran more than 800 stores with 3,500 employees. About 75 percent of store staff had been on short-time work during the first COVID-19 lockdown.

Börsen-Zeitung reported in 2024 that the retail business had been handed to Alexander as a gift. Kind still followed its decisions closely and was still involved in the manufacturing business, audifon. "I need information and numbers; it's like a blood supply for me," he told the paper. Kind said in 2020 that he also had property and investment interests needing close attention. Handelsblatt wrote in 2014 that he had also made money from property, a workplace safety company, a hotel, radio stations, a consultancy and a music publisher. His hotel is in Großburgwedel, according to Der Spiegel.

Sale to Demant, 2025

On June 11, 2025, Demant announced that it would buy the KIND Group for EUR 700 million (about DKK 5.2 billion) on a cash- and debt-free basis. Demant called it the largest acquisition in its history. At that point KIND had about 650 hearing care clinics and about 3,000 employees. About 600 of the clinics were in Germany, about 30 in Switzerland, and a smaller number in Austria, Luxembourg and Singapore. Demant said the two companies had worked together for more than 20 years. In the announcement Alexander Kind was named as owner and chief executive, and he said the family had "found the ideal partner to carry our legacy forward".

Demant completed the purchase on December 1, 2025, and expected KIND to add about DKK 2 billion to its revenue in 2026. As of October 2026, KIND says it has been part of the Demant Group since December 2025 and runs more than 600 stores in Germany, Austria and Luxembourg.

Hannover 96: chairman, 1997 to 2005

Kind became chairman of the board of Hannoverscher Sportverein von 1896 e.V. on September 26, 1997. Fighting inside the club around his predecessor, Utz Claassen, had left it weak in both sport and money. Kind later said he took the unpaid post because the club was insolvent and playing in the third division, and needed someone who could turn it around. According to Die Welt, the club had debts of 7.1 million Deutsche Mark when he arrived. He was 53 and said, "I have a concept that will hopefully take hold." Kind told Börsen-Zeitung that he was not "a passionate football fan". He said he agreed to take responsibility when public officials asked him, and proposed moving the professional team out of the non-profit association into a company. Members approved this by more than a two-thirds majority, and the professional section was transferred to Hannover 96 GmbH & Co. KGaA in 1999.

The club was promoted to the Bundesliga in 2002. During his time in charge the Niedersachsenstadion was rebuilt as a football stadium, a project the state government listed among his main achievements in 2018. He stepped down as chairman in 2005.

Return in 2006 and the Bundesliga years

In July 2006 Kind returned as chairman, replacing Götz von Fromberg. The day he took office, managing director Karl-Heinz Vehling resigned all his posts with immediate effect, saying that after the public debate of the previous days "a relationship of trust cannot be expected". The taz described Kind's return as that of the club's "strong man". From 2006 he also ran the professional company as its managing director.

After the 2010 to 2011 season Hannover qualified for European competition for the first time in 19 years. In 2012 the team lost to Atlético Madrid in the Europa League quarter-finals. By November 2014 the club was in its 13th straight Bundesliga season. Kind said then, "We have developed Hannover 96 successfully as a business." In 2017 Die Welt reported that the club had more than 20,000 members and had just put about EUR 18 million into a new youth academy.

Investors around Kind gradually took over the share capital of the professional company. Through capital increases, the investors' company Hannover 96 Sales & Service GmbH & Co. KG reduced the association's share of the KGaA, because the association never had enough equity to take part. By 2017 the association's remaining share was zero, according to Der Spiegel. In April 2015 the association sold its last 15.66 percent stake to the investor group around Kind for about EUR 3.25 million, to help pay for the youth academy. The annual meeting had to vote three times before the board was discharged, with "considerable votes against". Some members shouted "election fraud". Kind also became majority owner and managing director of Sales & Service. Its other investors included the drugstore entrepreneur Dirk Roßmann, who told Der Spiegel, "Martin Kind is the boss."

In October 2014 Kind said he planned to leave the chairmanship by the 2017 to 2018 season, once the new youth academy and the move to the club's new grounds on Stammestraße were finished. He did not leave then.

Loss of the association, 2019

At the association's general meeting on March 23, 2019, members refused to discharge the board under Kind and the outgoing supervisory board. All five candidates from the opposition group Pro Verein 1896, including former club captain Carsten Linke, were elected to the five-member supervisory board. Kind's candidates all lost. The new board named former fan liaison officer Sebastian Kramer as his successor as chairman, while Kind stayed on as managing director of the professional company. Before the vote Kind had said, "I'm not going anywhere." He warned that anyone who questioned the "two-pillar model" of separate professional and amateur sport "endangers the whole house of Hannover 96".

Removal as managing director, 2022 to 2024

The association is the only shareholder of Hannover 96 Management GmbH, the general partner of the professional company Hannover 96 GmbH & Co. KGaA. Under the Management GmbH's articles, only its supervisory board could appoint or dismiss the managing director, and investors as well as the association were represented on that board. In a 2019 agreement known as the "Hannover 96 contract", the association had promised not to change this arrangement on its own.

On July 25, 2022, the association bypassed the supervisory board and removed Kind as managing director "with immediate effect for good cause". Kind sued. The Hanover Regional Court ruled the resolution void on October 11, 2022, and the Higher Regional Court in Celle confirmed that ruling on April 4, 2023. The appeal court found that the association had broken both the articles and its own voting commitment in the Hannover 96 contract. On July 16, 2024, the Federal Court of Justice overturned those decisions and dismissed Kind's claim. It held that breaking the articles made the resolution open to challenge but not void. It added that Kind, who was not a shareholder of the company, had no standing to bring such a challenge. Any dispute over the Hannover 96 contract, the court said, was a matter between the parties to it.

After the ruling, Sales & Service announced that Kind would move to the supervisory board of the KGaA. He would remain managing director of Sales & Service, of the stadium company Hannover 96 Arena GmbH & Co. KG and of other subsidiaries. Kind had already publicly proposed sporting director Marcus Mann as his successor. The supervisory board of the Management GmbH, with two voting members each from the association and the investors, could not agree on a new managing director for months. Two courts refused the investors' request for an emergency managing director. In March 2025, one day before the licensing deadline, the board unanimously appointed Marcus Mann and Henning Bindzus as joint managing directors.

Supervisory board chairman

In August 2026, after Hannover 96 lost its first two 2. Bundesliga matches of the season, the 82-year-old Kind, identified by dpa as chairman of the supervisory board and a financial backer of the club, publicly backed head coach Christian Titz. "He stays," Kind said at a Neue Presse event in Hanover. "Our goal is promotion. We still have an expensive squad."

Leadership and management style

Writers have often described Kind's style as strict and centralised. In a 2017 profile Der Spiegel described him as disciplined and frugal, hungry for success and intolerant of unprofessional behaviour. It said he was seen as a sole ruler who wanted football clubs to become businesses. The magazine noted that he was at once chairman of the association, managing director of the professional company and the main shareholder and managing director of the investors' company. "Over every part of Hannover 96 sits the same boss," it wrote. In 2015 Die Welt called him "the last patron of the Bundesliga". It said he ran the club as a company and that his decisions were sometimes made on gut feeling. It also noted his yearly refrain: "I cannot accept relegation."

Head coaches changed often under him. By December 2015, Thomas Schaaf was the 14th head coach and Martin Bader the tenth sporting director of his time in charge. Der Spiegel counted 15 coaches and nine sporting directors over his first 20 years. Die Welt called some of his personnel decisions, often taken alone, "questionable". It cited the hiring of Schaaf in 2015, who was dismissed after about three months, and the replacement of Daniel Stendel with André Breitenreiter during a promotion race. He continued to comment on sporting matters after leaving management. In 2023 he publicly questioned coach Stefan Leitl after the first two matches of the season, according to the Frankfurter Rundschau.

Kind has defended this approach in business terms. "Capital must make the decisions," he told Der Spiegel. In 2017, asked why ordinary members should not approve major investments, he said, "I don't know whether you would want, if you gave five million euros, a third party to decide about the money." In 2024 he told Börsen-Zeitung: "I am resilient and capable of dealing with conflicts. If I am convinced of something, I stand by my assessment." He rejected the image of himself as a patriarch in football in his 2020 Focus interview. In the same interview he described himself as a perfectionist. Kind told Der Spiegel that he had always worked for Hannover 96 on an unpaid basis.

Major deals and strategic decisions

The 50+1 rule

The 50+1 rule, introduced by the German Football Association (DFB) in 1998, requires a club's parent association to keep a majority of votes in the company that runs its professional team. For years Kind campaigned against the rule largely alone. He objected in particular that it did not apply to the company-backed clubs Bayer 04 Leverkusen and VfL Wolfsburg. He took the issue to the league's standing arbitration court. In 2011 the court kept the rule at its core but opened a route for investors who had funded a club "continuously and substantially" for more than 20 years to take majority control. "This is a ruling for the Bundesliga," Kind said at the time. In 2014 the league defined "substantial" funding. In every season of the 20-year period, the funding had to at least match the average budget share of the club's main sponsor.

Exemption application, 2017 to 2018

In August 2017 the association's supervisory board voted three to two to let Kind acquire 51 percent of Hannover 96 Management GmbH. Opponents in the club argued that a resolution of the April 2017 general meeting barred an application. Kind said that resolution was only "a recommendation". The price was EUR 12,750, which was 51 percent of the company's share capital of EUR 25,000. Kind said the figure was based on valuers' advice. A report commissioned by his opponent Ralf Nestler from the auditing firm Baker Tilly instead valued the shares at between EUR 10 million and EUR 30 million.

Hannover 96 and Kind applied to the DFL for an exemption on August 4, 2017. They suspended the application on February 5, 2018, amid press reports that it would fail, and reactivated it on May 11, 2018. When it was suspended, Kind said he had invested more than the club's main sponsorship income over the 20 years, which he put at EUR 46 million. He said he had withdrawn so he could help shape a reform of the rule. On July 18, 2018, the DFL Presidium rejected the application unanimously. It found that the funding Kind had undoubtedly provided did not reach the level the rules required. The DFL also asked the Federal Cartel Office to review the rule under competition law.

Kind kept arguing against the rule. "I say it as before: 50+1 must go," he said in 2020, though he suggested the league could change it rather than abolish it. In 2024 he called the rule "legally more than questionable". In March 2023 the DFL proposed removing funding exemptions from its statutes altogether. A lawyer told t-online that this would close the exemption route for clubs such as Hannover 96.

Ownership succession

Focus reported in 2020 that Kind held 52 percent as majority shareholder of the professional club. In January 2024 Börsen-Zeitung reported that he had transferred his majority stake of over 52 percent in Sales & Service to his younger son, Matthias. The other investors named were Roßmann and the property investor Gregor Baum. According to Kind, the three shareholders had invested about EUR 50 million in total.

Financial and market performance

Few figures for KIND's finances under Kind's ownership were published. The figures that were reported are store and staff counts at various dates: about 700 stores in 14 countries and more than 3,000 staff in 2018, more than 800 stores and 3,500 staff in 2020, and about 4,000 staff in 12 countries in early 2024. At the June 2025 sale, Demant counted about 650 clinics and about 3,000 employees. It valued the business at EUR 700 million and expected about EUR 300 million of revenue from it in 2026. After closing, Demant lowered its 2026 revenue estimate for KIND to about DKK 2 billion, citing weaker market growth in 2025.

At Hannover 96, Kind said in 2014 that clubs with turnover of EUR 70 million to EUR 80 million could not make adequate profits, which was why outside shareholders were needed. In 2020 he said the club was losing EUR 500,000 in ticket income for every match played without spectators during the pandemic. In 2024 he said the club was "economically too fragile" for a stock market listing, after years of losses in the second division.

Board memberships and outside roles

Kind has been a member of the supervisory board of GLC Glücksburg Consulting AG since 2010. GLC lists these other roles:

• Member of the board of trustees of the Rudolf von Bennigsen Foundation, since 2002
• Chairman of Die Wahren Dorff Freunde e.V., since 2004
• Supervisory board member of the Hannoverscher Rennverein (Hanover racing club), since 2005
• Supervisory board member of NORD/LB, since 2005
• Member of the donors' circle of the Mädchenchor Hannover (Hanover girls' choir), since 2006
• Second chairman of the Agentur für Erwachsenen- und Weiterbildung, since 2006
• Advisory board member of the Gerald Asamoah Foundation, since 2007
• Advisory board member of the German-Turkish Network of Lower Saxony

He is an honorary member of Lesestart Hannover, an early reading charity. In 2025 he was patron of the first "Made in Europe: Award for Excellence", presented in Berlin on September 9, 2025.

Controversies

Conflict with fans

Kind's relationship with parts of Hannover 96's support broke down over several years. After pyrotechnics at matches against Dynamo Dresden in a 2012 cup tie and against Eintracht Braunschweig, the club passed DFB fines on to some fans. For the away derby at Eintracht Braunschweig, it required fans to travel on organised bus trips, following police and interior ministry advice. Some ticket holders went to court over the requirement. From the 2014 to 2015 season the ultras boycotted first-team matches and followed the reserve side instead. Kind said that violence, pyrotechnics, racism and right-wing extremism were not open for discussion. Fans objected to his grouping of these together. In the same interview he said that racism and right-wing extremism were "not serious issues" in Hanover at that point.

In March 2015 fans reported that stewards had threatened them with expulsion for chanting against Kind. The club denied any such instruction. Kind said the stewards' practice was "not agreed with me and completely pointless". "Kind muss weg!" ("Kind must go!") banners and chants became a regular feature of matches. In 2017 about 500 fans demonstrated against his takeover plans. He acknowledged to Der Spiegel in 2017 that, knowing what he knew then, he would probably have decided against getting involved with the club.

Takeover price dispute

Opponents argued that the planned EUR 12,750 price for 51 percent of the Management GmbH was far below its value. The Baker Tilly report concluded that the sale would serve "primarily the economic interests of the buyer Martin Kind at the expense of the club's purpose". Kind's fellow investor Matthias Wilkening called the plan "extremely questionable" and "flagrantly unlawful". Both Wilkening and Nestler failed to win injunctions in court. Der Spiegel also reported a confidential 2008 report prepared for the DFL. It said the report concluded that Hannover 96's structure breached the 50+1 rule, a view the DFL rejected.

DFL investor vote, 2023

On December 11, 2023, the 36 clubs of the top two divisions voted by secret ballot on opening talks with a private equity investor over a share of the league's media revenue. The motion passed with exactly the two-thirds majority required. The Hannover 96 association had instructed Kind, as the club's representative, to vote against. Media reports suggested he had voted in favour and so supplied the deciding vote. Kind declined to say how he voted, saying, "It was a secret ballot." The vote fuelled nationwide fan protests. In February 2024 Hannover 96 fans displayed a banner showing Kind in a crosshair. Kind called the level of protest "partly unacceptable" and described dialogue with the fan stands as "Gelabere" (blather). That month he defended the investor deal on the ARD talk show Hart aber fair. A Frankfurter Rundschau commentator wrote that he appeared outmatched.

Personal life

He is married and has two sons. Alexander Kind studied economics in St. Gallen and joined the family firm by his own choice. Matthias Kind lives in Berlin, works in the music industry and never wanted to join the business. Kind has at least one grandchild.

Among his friends is Dirk Roßmann, whose company is also based in Großburgwedel. The two play tennis and skat together and also go hiking and play chess. The Frankfurter Rundschau reported in 2024 that they played two hours of doubles tennis every Monday at Kind's own court in Großburgwedel, followed by two hours of skat. It also named financier Carsten Maschmeyer and former chancellor Gerhard Schröder among his friends. Kind has said he never takes holidays because "for me, work is leisure". He also said that he cries at funerals, that he is not afraid of death, and that he had "decided to live to 104". Politically, he described himself in 2020 as a supporter of the European Union and of common European foreign, defence, financial, economic and tax policies.

In 2013 Manager Magazin estimated his wealth at EUR 600 million, placing him 188th among the richest Germans.

Recognition

• 2018: Niedersächsische Landesmedaille, the highest honour of the state of Lower Saxony. It was presented by Minister-President Stephan Weil for Kind's work in hearing care, as an entrepreneur and in sport.

See also

• Hannover 96
• Dirk Rossmann
• Demant
• 50+1 rule

External links

• KIND company website