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Family enterprise ACO

The family enterprise ACO moves forward with the next generation: the present and the future of the ACO Group are represented by Hans-Julius Ahlmann and his son Iver Ahlmann, who officially joined the management of ACO Ahlmann SE & Co. KG in 2012 as a managing partner. Iver Ahlmann therefore takes on corporate responsibility and bears ACO’s identity as a family enterprise into the future.


1946 Josef-Severin Ahlmann (1924-2006) sets up his new company, ACO, on the site of the Carlshütte. The youngest son of Julius and Käte Ahlmann, he starts a business producing concrete construction components and windows. The first drainage channels are added in the 1960s and the innovative polymer concrete channel drainage system, ACO Drain®, was launched in the 1970s.
Also in the 1970’s ACO expands into markets and establishes companies outside Germany for the first time. In the early 1980s, Severin Ahlmann gradually transferred the reins to his nephew Hans-Julius Ahlmann, under whose visionary leadership the ACO Group has experienced significant growth, diversification and globalization.


1931 Käte Ahlmann (1890-1963) takes over management of the Carlshütte following the sudden death of her husband Julius. She grows the company in the face of many challenges, and becomes one of the most famous business women of her time. Among her many achievements, Käte Ahlmann was a founding member and first president of the Association of German Business women (VdU).


1780 The sailing ship captain Otto Friedrich Ahlmann decides to pursue a career on land as a businessman. It proved a successful move: his sons and grandsons become bankers and owners of a large ironware trading business operating in the Scandinavian region. The Ahlmann family’s commercial activities soon focus on the Carlshütte iron foundry set up in Büdelsdorf in 1827. The iron foundry is the first industrial company established in Schleswig-Holstein.