Sponsored partner portrait. In southern Germany the newly formed STERNE GRUPPE has moved quickly from idea to scale — and that should matter to drivers, fleet buyers, dealers and workshop staff across Swabia and around Ulm. The group now brings together some 15 locations, roughly 1,400 employees (including around 280 apprentices) and a broad Mercedes‑brand portfolio; in December 2025 it formally took over the Mercedes‑Benz Niederlassung Ulm/Neu‑Ulm, a transfer that reshapes local retail and service capacity.
How the Sterne Gruppe was formed
The Sterne Gruppe is the result of a strategic tie-up between two long‑standing family dealer networks: KreuterMedeleSchäfer and Abel+Ruf. The two families created the Sterne Gruppe GmbH to combine their regional strengths and to bid for manufacturer‑owned dealerships that Mercedes‑Benz began offering for sale in 2024. The group was publicly announced in mid‑2025 and formally absorbed the Neu‑Ulm/Ulmer Niederlassung on 1 December 2025 — the first of Mercedes’ own retail branches to change into private dealer hands in that process.
The partners describe the venture as an owner‑managed, family business with deep regional roots. The Kreuter family in particular traces its Mercedes relationship back many decades: local reporting notes an association with Mercedes‑Benz beginning in 1936, underlining the long dealer tradition behind the new group. Corporate registrations and press coverage show the leadership team now includes Peter Schäfer, Lukas Ruf and Joachim Fellner as company representatives.
What customers in Swabia and Ulm can expect
For buyers and fleet customers the Sterne Gruppe presents a consolidated regional network: the group operates Mercedes‑Benz passenger cars, vans, trucks and buses alongside Smart, Ford, Tremonia and Fuso at multiple sites across a roughly 10,000 km² market area that runs from Donauwörth via Augsburg to the Allgäu and Ulm/Neu‑Ulm. Locations shown on the group’s site include Riedlingen, Memmingen, Biberach, Dornstadt, Günzburg and Neu‑Ulm — among others — and customers will encounter familiar Mercedes retail standards at those addresses.
The December takeover of the Ulm/Neu‑Ulm Niederlassung brought roughly 200 employees into the Sterne Gruppe fold and kept the site’s retail, service and van operations intact. For local motorists and commercial clients that means continuity of workshop capacity and warranty/service ties to the brand while ownership and day‑to‑day management move to an independent, regionally embedded operator.
Customers will also find strengthened apprenticeship and personnel programmes: the group highlights nearly 280 apprentices within its workforce, and management has emphasised retention and training as core priorities during the integration of Ulm/Neu‑Ulm. That focus is designed to keep service expertise local as the retail landscape consolidates.
What this means for the market
The Sterne Gruppe’s rise is a snapshot of wider consolidation in branded retail: larger, financially robust dealer groups are positioning to buy and operate former manufacturer branches, combining local dealer networks into geographically coherent clusters that can absorb the costs of electrification, digital retailing and larger workshop investments. By bringing together family groups with decades of Mercedes experience the Sterne Gruppe aims to offer scale while retaining regional decision‑making.
For competitors and OEMs the Sterne Gruppe’s model signals two clear trends: manufacturers will continue to look for experienced partners to take on formerly corporate sites, and regional players with deep manufacturer ties have a credible path to become large, multi‑site partners without turning to outside financial owners. AUTOHAUS described the new entity as one of the region’s larger Mercedes partners and highlighted the group’s 2024 revenues of more than EUR 800 million — a marker of the financial scale behind this entry.
Finally, for employees and suppliers the consolidation can bring investment and work continuity, but it also raises the importance of harmonised processes across sites: successful integrations will be judged on service turnaround times, parts availability, and how well training and customer experience standards are unified across the expanded footprint.
People to know: the Sterne Gruppe lists Peter Schäfer, Lukas Ruf and Joachim Fellner among its company representatives; Hans‑Joachim Daigler appears on the group’s contact pages and is listed in professional profiles as a senior sales executive with long experience in the Mercedes‑Benz ecosystem. That combination of experienced family owners and seasoned retail leaders is the backbone of the Sterne Gruppe’s pitch to customers and partners.
If you are in Swabia, Ulm or the Allgäu and want to see how the new structure works for purchase, service or fleets, a visit or call to your local Sterne Gruppe site will show how the network operates on the ground — and local teams are ready to explain options for service, financing and fleet management. (Sponsored — partner portrait.)
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Sources: AUTOHAUS, sterne-gruppe.de
