Mathias Döpfner, chief executive of Axel Springer, the German newspaper publisher, looks set to become Germany's highest-earning manager this year after making an €18m (£12.3m) profit by taking a cut-price stake in the group. Döpfner bought the shares from Friede Springer, the widow of the group's founder, for a price about 25% less than that quoted on the Frankfurt stock exchange. Last year Döpfner and his three board colleagues earned a total of €13.4m (£8.8m) in pay and bonuses. (Via FT.com)
Mathias Döpfner, chief executive of Axel Springer, made a paper gain of €18m (£12.3m) after buying a cut-price stake in Europe's biggest newspaper publisher from Friede Springer, the founder's widow and controlling shareholder. Springer chief gains €18m from cut-price stake advertisement
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All Financial Times News Mathias Döpfner, chief executive of Axel Springer, the German newspaper publisher, looks set to become the nation's highest-earning manager this year after making an €18m (£12.3m) profit by taking a cut-price stake in the group.
With Springer board members each taking home an estimated €3m-€5m a year in normal pay and bonuses, Mr Döpfner is in line to earn double the German record of €11.9m set by Josef Ackermann, Deutsche Bank chief executive, in 2005.
The publisher of Bild, a German tabloid newspaper, on Thursday said owner Friede Springer had sold Mr Döpfner 2 per cent – or 680,000 shares – in the listed company at €77 apiece, one-quarter less than the €104 per share quoted on the Frankfurt stock exchange.
The €52m deal is proof of the good relationship between the 63-year-old Ms Springer and Mr Döpfner, 20 years her junior, in whom she is said to see the business and social talents of her late husband Axel.
Ms Springer is godmother to one of Mr Döpfner's children, and they live close to one another in Potsdam, a leafy Berlin suburb.
Four years after taking the helm, Mr Döpfner in January had to bury plans to expand into television after cartel watchdogs vetoed the €4bn takeover of ProSiebenSat1, the nation's second-biggest commercial station.
Since then, he has been promising to invest solid profits in new projects overseas, but has yet to present a coup akin to ProSieben.
Springer recently launched a tabloid in Poland, and has said it is looking for opportunities elsewhere.
Although Ms Springer has publicly backed her chief executive, making him a part-owner at such favourable conditions cements his position to an extent unknown to his many - and sometimes short-lived - predecessors.
The transaction is the second to whittle down a 10.4 per cent stake in the company Ms Springer scooped from the ruins of the Kirch media dynasty in late 2002. In addition, she controls just over 50 per cent via a foundation.
Ms Springer was less generous the first time around. She sold a 3 per cent stake in the Berlin company to London-based investor Michael Lewis at €102 per share this spring – a discount of 1 per cent on the stock price.
But even the cut-price deal agreed with Mr Döpfner will leave her in the black. She bought the shares at €53.49, giving her a 44 per cent gain over three-and-a half years. She has made a profit of €65.5m from both sales.
Axel Springer is one of the few prominent German companies not to publish earnings of individual executives.
Mr Döpfner and his three board colleagues earned a total of €13.4m in pay and bonuses last year.(Via Companies news – Media and internet – FT.com)
