In an interview with the German newspaper, Spiegel, Maria-Elisabeth and Georg Schaeffler – the owners of 20 and 80 per cent respectively of the automotive supplier – have answered a variety of questions relating to the current status of the business, considering the financial difficulties it is facing due to the timing of its takeover of Continental and the ongoing financial crisis. They insist that accusations of irresponsibility on the Group’s part in the takeover ignore the conditions in summer 2008 and use hindsight, which is in Georg’s words “the key to the debate,” to criticise their actions after the fact. In addition, the owners have referred to the banks’ and the government’s “responsibility” in the crisis and the differentiation between “the assistance benefiting a company that is fundamentally healthy and one that was already ailing before the crisis.”