The mismanagement and unsuccessful investments led BMW in a deep financial
crisis (1957-1959) In 1958 BMW had a loss of 12 million DEM, in 1959 a
further 9,2 Million DEM. As a result, more than half of the paid capital of
30 Million DEM was lost. And it came to the famous (regular) stockholder's
meeting on 9th, Dezember 1959. The president of the Board of Directors Dr
Hans Feith (Deutsche Bank) proposed the recapitalization of BMW where the
company was supposed to be sold to Daimler-Benz AG (whose majority stock was
also hold by Deutsche Bank), a plan which was regarded as a total ignorance
of the small stockholders.
Erich Nold, who was also among those 'small' stockholders, led an opposition
against Dr Feith's proposal and with the help of Dr Friedrich Mathern
(member of the Board of Directors between 1960-1966), who was a lawyer and
certified public accountant and was also representing the stockholders. Dr
Mathern found an error in the balance sheet which was presented during the
stockholder's meeting on that day, regarding the development costs of the
BMW 700. This move of him caused the refusal of the Daimler-Benz AG offer
and encouraged Herbert Quandt to buy the stocks of Mr Krages (a wealthy
wood-merchant from the city of Bremen) and increase his stock up to 15%.
(Herbert Quandt was holding almost %60 of BMW capitals by the end of 1969)
So far a brief history of Erich Nold

(Erich Nold died in 1995)
quoted from undisclosed source
Thus Mr. Nold helped prevent BMW from being bought out by Daimler-Benz/AG
Next trivia question - How did Phil find this answer? (no it wasn't Google)