EM.TV: Die wahre Geschichte - 500 Beiträge pro Seite
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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.
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.
Da sind ja einige Neuigkeiten drin; wenn das stimmt mit den Halbjahreszahlen, war das wohl kein honest mistake!
Das meiste war ja zumindest gerüchteweise bekannt. Und hat wirklich jemand ernsthaft an ein Versehen geglaubt bei den Bilanzmanipulationen?
Wenn man das alles liest, wundert man sich nicht mehr, dass niemand bereit ist, diesen Sauhaufen aus dem Sumpf zu ziehen. Natürlich: An der F1 sind einige interessiert - aber bestimmt nicht zu den Fantasiepreisen der Haffas.
Gruß, rv
Wenn man das alles liest, wundert man sich nicht mehr, dass niemand bereit ist, diesen Sauhaufen aus dem Sumpf zu ziehen. Natürlich: An der F1 sind einige interessiert - aber bestimmt nicht zu den Fantasiepreisen der Haffas.
Gruß, rv
Der Artikel ist lesenswert.
Und halten wir fest: Goebel ist/war in der Tat einer der Aufrechten!
Habe dies im Wall Street Journal Europe gefunden:
Companies:
EM.TV Suffers New Turmoil
As Potential Savior Emerges
---
Firm Is in Talks With H&F, Ecclestone on Unloading
Formula One Stake
----
By Neal E. Boudette
Staff Reporter
The Wall Street Journal Europe via Dow Jones
EM.TV & Merchandising AG is suffering a fresh round of management turmoil and setbacks in its main business, even as a possible new financial savior emerged.
Burdened by debt after buying half of the Formula One auto-racing circuit last year, the distributor of cartoons has opened discussions with the same playersinvolved in the start of its troubles -- racing-circuit operator Bernie
Ecclestone and Hellman & Friedman LLC, a San Francisco
investment firm that made millions of dollars from EM.TV`s original Formula One purchase -- said people with knowledge of EM.TV`s efforts.
EM.TV Supervisory Board Chairman Nickolaus Becker
met Formula One and H&F representatives last week after EM.TV all but ended fractious negotiations over an alliance with the Kirch Group, these people said.
The Munich-based media company now hopes to sell most of its Formula One Holding to H&F for about $600 million (642 million euros), far less than the $1.6 billion in cash and stock it paid for half of the racing circuit last March, the people said. A small part of EM.TV`s holding would also go to Mr.Ecclestone free -- although he would waive an option force EM.TV to buy an additional 25% of Formula One
for almost $1 billion, a price EM.TV cannot afford to pay, they said.
However, even if this deal goes through, which is still not certain, EM.TV Chief Executive Thomas Haffa has new troubles. In the past week he has clashed sharply with Hans P. Vriens, the EM.TV management board member in charge of
merchandising, said people at EM.TV.
Mr. Vriens, who is now attending an industry trade show in Las Vegas, lost almost all of his responsibilities when Mr. Haffa set up a new licensing group in New York last August and installed a longtime friend, Helen Issacson, at the
top. Messrs. Haffa and Vriens are barely speaking to each other, company insiders said.
Two other management board members resigned in December. Mr. Haffa`s brother Florian, who had been chief financial officer, resigned after EM.TV badly misforecast profit growth. Ulrich Goebel, who headed business affairs, quit
after feuding with both Haffas over accounting methods.
Moreover, with its stock price down more than 90% and Mr. Haffa under investigation for fraud and insider trading, business partners have begun shying away. Retailer Karstadt Quelle AG has put on hold plans to market toys based on
cartoon characters owned by Junior.TV, a programming library owned by EM.TV and Kirch, said people familiar with the matter. Karstadt was supposed to open Junior World shops in department stores across Germany, but stopped after the first three.
A Junior.TV Internet site is also far behind schedule. In a Jan. 10 letter to EM.TV employees, Thomas Haffa said the company was searching for a partner to get the project, called Junior.Web, off the ground. EM.TV had been talking to
T-Online International AG, the Internet unit of Deutsche Telekom AG, but the discussions were complicated by T-Online`s own management shake-up, said the people familiar with the situation.
__________________________________________________
Companies:
EM.TV Suffers New Turmoil
As Potential Savior Emerges
---
Firm Is in Talks With H&F, Ecclestone on Unloading
Formula One Stake
----
By Neal E. Boudette
Staff Reporter
The Wall Street Journal Europe via Dow Jones
EM.TV & Merchandising AG is suffering a fresh round of management turmoil and setbacks in its main business, even as a possible new financial savior emerged.
Burdened by debt after buying half of the Formula One auto-racing circuit last year, the distributor of cartoons has opened discussions with the same playersinvolved in the start of its troubles -- racing-circuit operator Bernie
Ecclestone and Hellman & Friedman LLC, a San Francisco
investment firm that made millions of dollars from EM.TV`s original Formula One purchase -- said people with knowledge of EM.TV`s efforts.
EM.TV Supervisory Board Chairman Nickolaus Becker
met Formula One and H&F representatives last week after EM.TV all but ended fractious negotiations over an alliance with the Kirch Group, these people said.
The Munich-based media company now hopes to sell most of its Formula One Holding to H&F for about $600 million (642 million euros), far less than the $1.6 billion in cash and stock it paid for half of the racing circuit last March, the people said. A small part of EM.TV`s holding would also go to Mr.Ecclestone free -- although he would waive an option force EM.TV to buy an additional 25% of Formula One
for almost $1 billion, a price EM.TV cannot afford to pay, they said.
However, even if this deal goes through, which is still not certain, EM.TV Chief Executive Thomas Haffa has new troubles. In the past week he has clashed sharply with Hans P. Vriens, the EM.TV management board member in charge of
merchandising, said people at EM.TV.
Mr. Vriens, who is now attending an industry trade show in Las Vegas, lost almost all of his responsibilities when Mr. Haffa set up a new licensing group in New York last August and installed a longtime friend, Helen Issacson, at the
top. Messrs. Haffa and Vriens are barely speaking to each other, company insiders said.
Two other management board members resigned in December. Mr. Haffa`s brother Florian, who had been chief financial officer, resigned after EM.TV badly misforecast profit growth. Ulrich Goebel, who headed business affairs, quit
after feuding with both Haffas over accounting methods.
Moreover, with its stock price down more than 90% and Mr. Haffa under investigation for fraud and insider trading, business partners have begun shying away. Retailer Karstadt Quelle AG has put on hold plans to market toys based on
cartoon characters owned by Junior.TV, a programming library owned by EM.TV and Kirch, said people familiar with the matter. Karstadt was supposed to open Junior World shops in department stores across Germany, but stopped after the first three.
A Junior.TV Internet site is also far behind schedule. In a Jan. 10 letter to EM.TV employees, Thomas Haffa said the company was searching for a partner to get the project, called Junior.Web, off the ground. EM.TV had been talking to
T-Online International AG, the Internet unit of Deutsche Telekom AG, but the discussions were complicated by T-Online`s own management shake-up, said the people familiar with the situation.
__________________________________________________
Damit konkretisieren sich die Alternativen für EM.TV:
Statt eines Bietergefechts gibt es
1.)ein seriöses Angebot mit 600 - 700 Mio $ für F1 und Ablöse der Put - Option, was ein Zerwürfnis mit Kirch zur Folge hätte
2.)ein höheres Angebot von Kirch für 49 % von F1 für 550 Mio $ ohne Ablöse der Putoption und mit der Bedingung 50 % JuniorTV gegen 16,74 % EM.TV Aktien zu tauschen.
Dafür ist nicht sicher ob Kirch zahlen kann.
Spannend wird es jetzt Mitte Februar ob EM.TV die Wandelanleihe bedient und Ende Februar wenn die Zahlen fürs 4. Quartal und Jahresabschluss 2000 vorgelegt werden.
Statt eines Bietergefechts gibt es
1.)ein seriöses Angebot mit 600 - 700 Mio $ für F1 und Ablöse der Put - Option, was ein Zerwürfnis mit Kirch zur Folge hätte
2.)ein höheres Angebot von Kirch für 49 % von F1 für 550 Mio $ ohne Ablöse der Putoption und mit der Bedingung 50 % JuniorTV gegen 16,74 % EM.TV Aktien zu tauschen.
Dafür ist nicht sicher ob Kirch zahlen kann.
Spannend wird es jetzt Mitte Februar ob EM.TV die Wandelanleihe bedient und Ende Februar wenn die Zahlen fürs 4. Quartal und Jahresabschluss 2000 vorgelegt werden.
Das muss nicht so schnell spannend werden: die Zinsen für die Wandelanleihe werden vielleicht noch bedient. Und die Jahreszahlen müssen erst bis spätestens Ende März kommen (wenn EM den Termin nicht wieder überzieht).
Die Stunde der Wahrheit kommt möglicherweise erst, wenn E`s Put-Option fällig wird. Bir dahin muss eine Entscheidung fallen.
Aber auch das erste Angebot (incl. Verzicht auf die Put-Option) lässt einen Anschlusskonkurs wahrscheinlich erscheinen.
Gruß, rv
Die Stunde der Wahrheit kommt möglicherweise erst, wenn E`s Put-Option fällig wird. Bir dahin muss eine Entscheidung fallen.
Aber auch das erste Angebot (incl. Verzicht auf die Put-Option) lässt einen Anschlusskonkurs wahrscheinlich erscheinen.
Gruß, rv
Leute, auch Big Bernie muß hier ganz krätig einlenken.
Denn ohne Agreement gibts erst Recht keine Milliarde für die Option, weil EMTV dann pleite wäre.
Er weiß genau, daß viel weniger für ihn auch geschenktes Geld ist. Aber dafür muß EMTV am Leben bleiben.
Die Wahrheit der nahen Zukunft EMTV´s liegt zwischen 5-15
Euro und wir sind auf dem Weg in die neutrale Zone um 10 Euro
Denn ohne Agreement gibts erst Recht keine Milliarde für die Option, weil EMTV dann pleite wäre.
Er weiß genau, daß viel weniger für ihn auch geschenktes Geld ist. Aber dafür muß EMTV am Leben bleiben.
Die Wahrheit der nahen Zukunft EMTV´s liegt zwischen 5-15
Euro und wir sind auf dem Weg in die neutrale Zone um 10 Euro
@ rv
warum entstand dann jetzt die Hektik Deiner Meinung nach. Haffa hätte ja noch bis 31.1. warten (lassen) koennen bis die Exklusiv Verhandlungsvereinbarung mit Kirch ausläuft.
Oder siehst Du einen Grund der Eile gebot ?
Stefan
warum entstand dann jetzt die Hektik Deiner Meinung nach. Haffa hätte ja noch bis 31.1. warten (lassen) koennen bis die Exklusiv Verhandlungsvereinbarung mit Kirch ausläuft.
Oder siehst Du einen Grund der Eile gebot ?
Stefan
darf ich kurz stören ?
.......danke :-)
ihr wollt doch alle bissel mehr als die anderen verdienen habe ich recht ?
deswegen dieses gerede von em.tv
versucht es mal in thailand
904205 wurden übernommen am 14.01.2001 für 4 THB 0,09 eur
aktuell 7,10 THB 0,17 eur in einer woche
der kurs kommt von 0,90 (gute aktie für thai verhältnisse )
mehr infos unter www.krprecision.com
ein paar tausend sollte man haben
mfg
.......danke :-)
ihr wollt doch alle bissel mehr als die anderen verdienen habe ich recht ?
deswegen dieses gerede von em.tv
versucht es mal in thailand
904205 wurden übernommen am 14.01.2001 für 4 THB 0,09 eur
aktuell 7,10 THB 0,17 eur in einer woche
der kurs kommt von 0,90 (gute aktie für thai verhältnisse )
mehr infos unter www.krprecision.com
ein paar tausend sollte man haben
mfg
@ greenbay
Wenn EM.TV am Leben bleibt, müsste die Wandelanleihe bedient werden.
Wahrscheinlicher (und die beste Lösung für die Banken) ist:
- der F1-Anteil wird von wem auch immer übernommen und Ecclestone wird abgefunden
- mit dem Erlös werden die Bankkredite bedient
- der insgesamt unprofitable Rest wird liquidiert.
@ Stefan
Die Eile kann ich mir auch nicht ganz erklären.
Haffa scheint jedenfalls nichts mehr zu sagen zu haben. Vielleicht KANN er Becker gar nicht loswerden, weil dieser die Interessen der Banken vertritt, die ihn sehr schnell zum Konkurs zwingen könnten. Abgesehen davon sind nach einer alten (dementierten) Spiegel-Meldung die Haffa-Aktien verpfändet (zu 10fach höheren Kursen), so dass Haffa möglicherweise sein Stimmrecht gar nicht ausüben kann.
Gruß, rv
Wenn EM.TV am Leben bleibt, müsste die Wandelanleihe bedient werden.
Wahrscheinlicher (und die beste Lösung für die Banken) ist:
- der F1-Anteil wird von wem auch immer übernommen und Ecclestone wird abgefunden
- mit dem Erlös werden die Bankkredite bedient
- der insgesamt unprofitable Rest wird liquidiert.
@ Stefan
Die Eile kann ich mir auch nicht ganz erklären.
Haffa scheint jedenfalls nichts mehr zu sagen zu haben. Vielleicht KANN er Becker gar nicht loswerden, weil dieser die Interessen der Banken vertritt, die ihn sehr schnell zum Konkurs zwingen könnten. Abgesehen davon sind nach einer alten (dementierten) Spiegel-Meldung die Haffa-Aktien verpfändet (zu 10fach höheren Kursen), so dass Haffa möglicherweise sein Stimmrecht gar nicht ausüben kann.
Gruß, rv
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