Gladbach Managing Director Stephan Schippers (left) and Flatex boss Frank Niehage (right), seen here on July 7, 2022 at a joint press conference in the Seehotel Überfahrt in Rottach-Egern.
: Dirk Päffgen
This is not good news about the main sponsor of Bundesliga soccer club Borussia Mönchengladbach!
The German financial regulator Bafin subjected the Frankfurt online broker Flatexdegiro to a special audit and found deficiencies in the organization and management.
The SDax company surprisingly announced this. The broker responds to the criticism and expands its board of directors.
Gladbach’s main sponsor Flatexdegiro: Management cuts business forecast
In the meantime, day-to-day business is going even worse than previously thought: the board of directors cut its already subdued business forecast for the current year. The dividend under consideration will probably not exist either.
According to the announcement, Bafin submitted its audit report to the broker back in November. Flatexdegiro did not give an exact date.
However, as a result of the examination, Bafin will “impose, among other things, that the company must ensure proper business organization”.
In addition, she had “ordered temporary additional capital requirements”.
Follow us on Instagram: @gladbachlive
According to its own statements, the company has now “initiated various measures to meet the regulatory requirements within a given timeframe”.
The company will continue to work closely with Bafin. The in-house Flatexdegiro Bank has already got a head of risk in Matthias Heinrich.
In addition, there have been organizational changes in the management of the internal controls, risk management and reporting departments, it said.
According to the announcement, the Supervisory Board and Management Board have also decided to capitalize Flatexdegiro Bank AG with a further 50 million euros from their own funds.
So far, the core capital of the Flatexdegiro group is 180 million euros. The surplus for the current year should also be retained in full.
On May 14, 2022 Borussia Monchengladbach and “FlatexDEGIRO AG” announces that the sponsorship partnership has been prematurely extended to 2027.
At least until 2024, Europe’s leading online broker is to remain the main sponsor on Borussia’s shirt front, and co-sponsorship has been agreed for the following three years.
Follow us on Twitter: @gladbachlive
According to GladbachLIVE information, “Flatex’ have paid Borussia up to eight million euros a year so far.
Now Flatexdegiro is obviously in a crisis.
Back in July, Flatex boss Frank Niehage had during the foal training camp on Tegernsee said at a press conference in Rottach-Egern: “Since we started at Borussia, the level of awareness of our company has increased by 300 percent. I can say that this partnership was a successful step.”
And: “We now have 2.2 million customers, but that’s not enough for me. We want to grow to seven to ten million customers in the next few years. The potential is there. And Gladbach will help us with that.”
Flatexdegiro has been the main sponsor of Borussia since 2020.
The shares of the shirt sponsor of Borussia Mönchengladbach and the Spanish Champions League participants FC Sevilla lost significantly in value at the start of trading on Monday (December 5, 2022).
(dpa/AM)