Does EM.TV go "Zombie"...??? - 500 Beiträge pro Seite

[freund.des.haffa]

Es stellt sich die Frage, kann EM.TV noch das
Schicksal eines Zombie, eines "lebenden Toten",
abwenden.

Ein Schicksal, das EM.TV-Aktien auf niedrigstem
Kurs vor sich herzucken lassen würde.

Ohne wirkliches Leben. Ohne wirkliche Kurssteigerungen.
Untot.

Unabhängig von operativen Tätigkeiten.

+++

EM.TV wurde allem Anschein nach wie eine Pommes-
Bude geführt.

Dem erfolgreichen Image in der Öffentlichkeit zum
Trotz.

Ein genauerer Blick auf den Chef von EM.TV
empfiehlt sich.

+++

Herr Haffa besticht durch persönliche
Eigenschaften wie permanentes, mentales "Planen"
sowie durch Charme.

Der Vermittlung des Gefühls, alle seien gleich und
stünden auf der gleichen Stufe.

Sowie der Vermittlung einer als sehr positiv
empfundenen Atmosphäre im allgemeinen.

Unangenehmes wird sehr charmant und mit einer
gewissen Eleganz zur Seite gewischt.

Diese Eigenschaften ermöglichten es Herrn Haffa, neue
Geschäftsabschlüsse mit seinem für die meisten als
sehr gewinnend empfundenen Wesen an Land zu ziehen.

Stark zu expandieren.

Ein beachtliches Image aufzubauen.

Sich und seine Firma aus den fetten Trögen der Finanzwelt
sehr lange bemerkenswert zu versorgen.

+++

Auf der Minus-Seite ist zu verbuchen, daß sich Herr Haffa
sehr gerne über andere lustig macht.

Vor allem aber wohl kein Mann für die Verrichtung von Alltagsgeschäften
ist.

Alltagsgeschäften, die Disziplin, Ausdauer, Sorgfalt, Umsicht &
Beharrlichkeit erfordern.

Da sie meist nicht einer gewissen Trockenheit bis gar Trostlosig-
keit entbehren.

Des Kicks jedenfalls immer.

Wodurch sich die Unersättlichkeit Herrn Haffas auf Neues
natürlich kaum befriedigen läßt.

+++

Aufgrund dieser persönlichen Eigenschaften konnte Herrn
Haffas Firma immer stärker wachsen.

Der Führungststil hingegen entsprach wohl dem einer Pommes-
Bude!

Die Notwendigkeit einer profitablen Entwicklung des
Kerngeschäfts wird erst jetzt erkannt. Jetzt!

Pommes-Bude ohne Ende! - Zombie-Dasein, tritt` näher...!

Die Fäulnis des modrigen Geruches liegt schon in der Luft
und will nicht weichen.

+++

Nüchternheit statt endloser Planerei und Arbeit könnten
Herrn Haffa weiterhelfen.

Die Rückfälle in endlose Planerei sind jedoch gesichert,
auch Herr Haffa kann aus seiner Haut nicht heraus.

So unglaublich schnell, wie Herr Haffa neue Kaninchen
aus dem Ärmel zu ziehen pflegt, können die alten
Kaninchen überhaupt nicht versorgt werden.

Geschweigedenn betreut.

Schlecht für Aktien-Besitzer von EM.TV.

+++

Die Frage einer "sinnvollen Einbindung" ist fast müßig.

Durch wen sollte sie erfolgen?

Durch einen Herrn Kirch? Einen Herrn Ecclestone?
Den großen Unbekannten?

Zumal beide massivste Eigeninteressen verfolgen und in
Geschäftscleverness Herrn Haffa letztlich um Einiges
überlegen zu sein scheinen.

Und glauben Sie wirklich, ein Mann mit dem Kontostand
und dem Alter von Herrn Haffa läßt sich noch "einbinden"?

[freund.des.haffa]

Die "Einbindung" Thomas Haffas scheint derzeit endlich
durch den Aufsichtsratvorsitzenden von EM.TV zu erfolgen.

[freund.des.haffa]

von Berlin828 21.01.01 15:00:59 2739943
EM.TV+MERCHANDI.O.N.

von der Wall St. Journal
MUNICH, Germany—Of all the surprises that have spilled out of EM.TV &
Merchandising AG in the past 12 months, the strangest was the plan to have
Kermit the Frog pitch Mercedes cars to children.
The other revelations were less amusing for shareholders, among them the
Henson family, which sold Kermit and the other Muppets to EM.TV early last year.
A year ago, the distributor of children’s TV shows was one of Europe’s
hottest companies. Its gregarious founder, Thomas Haffa, liked to boast aboard
his yacht that EM.TV would become the Disney of Europe, a powerful conglomerate
selling toys and TV shows to tots. Enthralled, investors drove its stock up more
than 10,000% from the 1997 initial-public-offering price.
Just a month after acquiring Jim Henson Co. in February, the company
made another deal, buying half of the Formula One auto-racing circuit.
Then bombs started going off. First, financial results at midyear came
in way short of forecasts. In the fall, after a tense internal debate, EM.TV
restated the revenue figure, paring it by 5%. In late November came word of an
undisclosed financial deal that could obligate EM.TV to come up with $1 billion
it didn’t have.
The public soon learned, too, of some stock selling by Mr. Haffa many
months earlier, when the shares were near their peak. Now a German prosecutor is
investigating, EM.TV is seeking a financial savior and the stock is down 95%
from its high.
For investors, the case is teaching some hard lessons about Europe’s new
equity culture. Even as U.S.-style entrepreneurialism took root, a new “growth
stock” exchange surged and stockholding spread to ordinary citizens, disclosure
requirements remained limited in many countries on the Continent. “It’s a Wild
West market in Germany,” says Alan Howard, an analyst at WitSoundview Europe in
London.
These concerns were far away Feb. 18 as Mr. Haffa savored a dinner in
New York with Henson Chief Executive Charles Rivkin, Jim Henson’s widow, Jane,
and three of the five Henson children. At midnight, they signed a sales contract
over champagne and then took a private jet to Munich to announce the deal.
There, say people familiar with the evening, Thomas Haffa insisted on
celebrating again at the Hofbrauhaus, where they laughed and swayed into the
morning hours over Bavarian beer, oompah music and some Japanese tourists’
renditions of “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” Basking in the moment, Mr. Haffa
told his new partners, “I am 48. When I am 50, I will buy Disney.”
He had reason to be expansive. He had just sold 200,000 shares of EM.TV
for the equivalent of about $100 each. Although it was only a small part of his
holdings, it was still a $20 million deal, and it was one that was neither
permitted under an agreement with his investment bank nor publicly disclosed.
Additionally, Mr. Haffa had just completed an EM.TV bond offering of
$396 million. The bonds might have been a harder sell if investors had known
that several weeks earlier, EM.TV had agreed to pay $680 million for Henson—a
price, say people familiar with the deal, that was twice what other bidders
offered. The Frankfurt stock exchange, while not commenting on a specific case,
indicates this is the kind of information a company ought to disclose when
offering bonds or shares. But EM.TV’s Feb. 9 bond prospectus merely said EM.TV
was in acquisition talks. Mr. Haffa declined requests to discuss the bond
offering.
EM.TV’s share price rose to $109 and its market value to nearly $16
billion, 60 times the company’s 1999 revenue. Mr. Haffa was a business
celebrity, his story told in numerous cover stories.
A former IBM typewriter salesman with no university education, Mr. Haffa
had learned the media business working for Kirch Group, a privately held pay-TV
company in Munich. He broke away in 1989 to found EM.TV. After gathering the
German rights to the Flintstones, the Simpsons and scores of other children’s-TV
characters, he took EM.TV public on the Neuer Markt,cq a branch of the Frankfurt
Stock Exchange conceived as Europe’s answer to Nasdaq. He and his family still
own 51% of EM.TV.
The Henson acquisition catapulted EM.TV onto the global stage, giving it
a presence in the U.S. and ownership of Kermit, Big Bird and the Sesame Street
gang. Then came the Formula One deal. The idea here was that many kids turn to
televised car racing just as they’re starting to lose interest in cartoons. For
half of Formula One, EM.TV paid $1.6 billion in cash and stock—no less than six
times EM.TV’s own 1999 sales. Mr. Haffa announced proudly that he had a right to
buy an additional 25%.
There was a flip side to that right, though—an obligation. It turns out
that the owner of the remaining 50% of Formula One, Bernie Ecclestone, had an
option allowing him to force EM.TV to buy another 25% of it for $1 billion.
Several analysts and investors say they knew nothing about this.
Even without knowing, some analysts wondered, in private, how EM.TV
would pay for all its pricey acquisitions. Another concern for some was the
company’s chief financial officer, Mr. Haffa’s 35-year-old brother, Florian. He
had little training in finance, and at a stock conference 13 months ago he
struggled to answer analysts’ questions about depreciation and other fiscal
minutiae. For instance, EM.TV’s 1999 cash flow was a negative $245 million,
according to figures from Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. But several analysts
say that when the CFO was asked when EM.TV would have positive cash flow, he
looked to his brother and then said, “I think we already are.”
“It was clear he didn’t know what he was talking about,” says Dan Cowen
of Credit Lyonnais, who, unlike most analysts, was rating EM.TV shares a sell.
Florian Haffa says he doesn’t recall the cash-flow question.
Another stock conference in the spring went little better. With the
stock off 25% on acquisition jitters and a general market slump, EM.TV brought
investment pros to the Kitzbuehl ski resort in the Austrian Alps to clear the
air. Via satellite, Formula One’s Mr. Ecclestone praised his partner. On tape,
Kermit the Frog saluted his new owners. “Hi ho. Guten Tag,” he said, adding that
it was great to be “a whole Haffa, not just a half a Haffa.”
When Florian Haffa took the podium, he showed three-year revenue, cost
and profit projections for EM.TV’s core business and for Formula One and the
Henson company—but no cash-flow figures, essential for valuation purposes.
Analysts scrambled to scribble the numbers down, and howled when they were
removed from the screen. EM.TV at first refused to give out the figures on paper
but then relented, say analysts who were there.
The Henson subsidiary’s CEO and CFO were in the audience, and they were
astonished, say people familiar with the matter. These people say EM.TV’s
projections for the Henson unit were merely pro forma calculations that an
investment banker had whipped up in trying to sell the Muppet company—results
showing what a buyer could expect if it pared overhead and found some synergies.
“They were not forecasts and were certainly not supposed to be made public, and
Florian was told that,” says one person with knowledge of the incident. Florian
Haffa declines to comment on that.
In any case, many analysts donned the fleece ski jackets EM.TV gave out
and left the Alps to write reports based on the company’s full-year forecast of
$738 million in revenue and $272 million in pretax profit—a forecast that would
come back to haunt the company. Numerous investment banks continued to recommend
the company’s stock.
A New Muppet?
The Henson group soon had another reason to wonder about EM.TV: the
Kermit proposal. EM.TV wanted the amiable amphibian to dump longtime flame Miss
Piggy for a new character, a “girl mechanic” named Mercedes, and then host a TV
show that would establish Mercedes-Benz as the favorite car among children. The
idea baffled the Hensons. Their sales contract included a clause, written by
Brian Henson, restricting the commercial use of Muppet characters, especially
his late father’s alter ego, Kermit. Some Henson people thought the idea was so
bad it was funny. Mercedes-Benz, part of DaimlerChrysler AG, killed the project
in July.
Then a flap over accounting arose inside EM.TV. It pitted the Haffa
brothers against Ulrich Goebel, the No. 3 executive and a former DaimlerChrysler
manager. Insiders say he was concerned about consolidating results from
different standards: America’s General Accepted Accounting Principles for the
Henson unit, British GAAP for Formula One, and International Accounting
Standards for EM.TV.
On Aug. 24, EM.TV released its first-half results. Six-month revenue,
$278 million, was only 36% of the company’s full-year projection. Pretax profit
was $73 million, only about 25% of the full-year forecast. Florian Haffa
reiterated the same full-year projections given at Kitzbuehl, but the stock took
a beating.
Mr. Goebel was on vacation at the time, and insiders say he was furious
when he returned. They say he maintained that some Formula One and Henson
revenue had been booked earlier than accounting rules allowed, and he wanted the
figures restated. The Haffas disagreed. Finally, after Mr. Goebel threatened to
resign, EM.TV restated the figures on Oct. 9, reducing first-half revenue by
about 5%—and blaming the Henson unit for supplying bad figures. Mr. Goebel says
he doesn’t want to be interviewed.
Florian Haffa again said that full-year earnings and revenue
expectations remained unchanged. But EM.TV’s stock fell 32% in one day.
Henson people were upset. At the family’s vacation home on a lake near
Disney World in Florida, the news came via the family’s private banker at J.P.
Morgan. Some family members quickly made arrangements to start selling their
EM.TV shares, people familiar with the events say. And the Henson subsidiary’s
chief financial officer, Linda Govreau, quit in disgust, insiders say, agreeing
to stay only after Thomas Haffa apologized.
In a letter to Henson employees, Mr. Haffa said the problems arose in
“reconciling three different sets of accounting standards and not in the data
provided by your company’s financial team.”
He added that “projected full-year results are completely unchanged,”
and he reaffirmed those forecasts publicly on at least two later occasions.
The Option
But EM.TV was in turmoil. Florian Haffa was eventually forced to give up
the CFO title. And Thomas Haffa was by now consumed with another big problem:
Mr. Ecclestone’s option to force EM.TV to buy another 25% of Formula One for
nearly $1 billion. Although EM.TV has an option to buy the 25% for about $1
billion until the end of February, if it doesn’t do so, Mr. Ecclestone then has
a “put” option, until the end of May, that could force EM.TV to make such a
purchase.
With no hope of raising that kind of money alone, Mr. Haffa turned to
Leo Kirch of Kirch Group, his former employer and current partner in a
TV-programming library that generates most of EM.TV’s revenue. Mr. Kirch’s
pay-TV operation badly wanted a marquee event to boost subscriptions, and
Formula One would fit the bill. But the sides couldn’t get together on a deal
because Mr. Kirch insisted on acquiring a stake in EM.TV, and Mr. Haffa didn’t
want to sell his own shares.
Then, at the end of November, word of Mr. Ecclestone’s option leaked to
the media. Although the company’s investor-relations director says the option
had been mentioned at the Kitzbuehl investor conference in May, eight analysts
who were there say they don’t recall it. The media reports knocked EM.TV’s stock
for another loop.
At about the same time, Thomas Haffa lost patience with Mr. Goebel and
sent him on indefinite vacation. Mr. Goebel eventually resigned.
Profit Warning
On Dec. 1, as news wires buzzed with word that a dire profit warning was
coming, the Haffas and their accountants pored over EM.TV’s books. Then they put
out a brief statement at 9:30 p.m. on a Friday saying that 2000 pretax profit
would total only the equivalent of $23 million—instead of the $272 million the
company had still been forecasting only weeks earlier.
That weekend, Florian Haffa resigned from EM.TV. On Dec. 4, Thomas Haffa
reached an agreement to sell Kirch Group a 17% stake in EM.TV and 49% of EM.TV’s
half of Formula One, for $550 million in cash. In an analyst conference call,
Mr. Haffa acknowledged that he had sold stock months earlier. He also indicated
in the phone call that Mr. Ecclestone’s option posed a risk for EM.TV.
Soon after, the Munich prosecutor started investigating EM.TV and Thomas
Haffa himself, focusing on the Formula One option, the far-off-base profit
forecasts and Mr. Haffa’s share sales. By New Year’s Day, the Henson family had
sold all six million of its EM.TV shares.
This week, Mr. Haffa acknowledged that his stock sale violated an
agreement with his investment bank.
In scraping for cash, EM.TV has recently sold U.S. rights to the Muppet
characters that appear on “Sesame Street” to the producer of that show, Sesame
Workshop (formerly called the Children’s Television Workshop).
Meanwhile, EM.TV and Kirch Group have been bickering over their
agreement. They haven’t yet signed a contract to carry out the deal that would
infuse $550 million into Mr. Haffa’s company. EM.TV shares, which have traded as
high as $110 in the past 12 months, closed yesterday at $5.658.

[freund.des.haffa]

[eurofighter2000]