Program switch for TV turnaround master Kofler
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Georg Kofler, serial rescuer of German TV companies, pulled his last surprise on an industry he has enlivened for 25 years by announcing he would quit pay-TV broadcaster Premiere and the entire media sector.
Kofler said on Monday he planned to build up a new group of companies in a different industry altogether after running out of challenges in television. He left the public guessing as to what sector he would target next.
"I know the media business now in all its ramifications. I am looking forward to turning my attentions and energy to new topics," he said in his resignation statement.
He later told Reuters in an interview: "You will see something concrete in the first half of 2008. I will do it on my own and start from nothing."
Kofler said he was leaving Premiere, which few would have given a chance of survival when he took it over in 2002, to his trusted finance chief Michael Boernicke to steer through its next phase of development.
He said his departure was not linked to any takeover approach for the now profitable broadcaster.
The 50-year-old Kofler was born in the Alpine village of Bruneck in South Tyrol and began his career, like others who went on to become German TV bosses, at Austrian state broadcaster ORF in 1985.
The restless communications graduate lasted a year before moving to Germany to join the media empire of Leo Kirch, a move that marked the start of what would become a long and close professional relationship.
He was soon running Kirch's office and at the age of 31 was put in charge of Munich broadcaster Eureka Television, the first of a series of seemingly hopeless cases he turned around with a mixture of relentless optimism, shrewd decisions and charm.
Eureka became ProSieben, now part of the ProSiebenSat.1 group, and in a matter of a few years pulled back from the brink of bankruptcy to become Germany's most profitable commercial TV station.
After a spell getting a Kirch movie cable channel off the ground he returned to list ProSieben on the market, raising 1.1 billion Deutsche Marks, about 550 million euros ($753 million) in today's currency, in an oversubscribed 1999 IPO.
Kofler then founded 24-hour news channel N24, another member of the ProSiebenSat.1 group, before striking out to bring teleshopping to Germany in the form of HOT, a channel supported by the U.S. Home Shopping Network.
His last venture before Premiere was the founding of quiz channel Nine Live.
ONLY ONE GEORG KOFLER
Kofler took over loss-making Premiere just months before Kirch's media empire imploded in Germany's biggest post-war corporate bankruptcy, hamstrung by debt after a series of poor investment decisions.
Characteristically seeing the disaster as opportunity, Kofler got together with private equity firm Permira to buy the company in 2003.
After slashing hundreds of jobs and offering bargain subscription packages to boost subscribers while charging premium rates for major league soccer, Kofler raised 1.2 billion euros in a 2005 listing, Germany's biggest-ever media IPO.
The company now has about 3.5 million subscriber households and expects to make a core profit of up to 100 million euros this year on sales of at least 1 billion.
Kofler's confidence has on occasion taken the form of hubris, for instance in late 2005 when he refused to believe he could lose the rights to Germany's Bundesliga soccer, Premiere's main attraction for customers.
"There is no plan B," he answered when asked what he would do if he lost. He did lose, there was no plan B, and Premiere shares plummeted, wiping out almost half the company's value in a single day.
But Kofler's optimism never seemed to waver and he eventually cut a sublicensing deal with new rights holder arena, leaving Premiere fit to fight another day.
That fight will now be taken over by Boernicke, the company's undoubtedly capable but unglamorous CFO. Kofler cashed out his last 23 million euros' worth of Premiere shares last week.
"Kofler was really the best CEO you could have wished for for Premiere," Sal. Oppenheim analyst Sonia Rabussier said on Monday. "Boernicke isn't Kofler. I don't think there is another Kofler in Germany."
(Additional reporting by Christian Kraemer in Munich)
