Now it's time for private assets: the imprisoned Wirecard boss Markus Braun
Photo: Lino Mirgeler / DPANow Markus Braun (50) also has to fear for his personal fortune. A Wirecard shareholder personally demanded compensation from the former CEO of the now insolvent payment service provider - and obtained an asset arrest at the Munich Higher Regional Court (OLG). In its decision, the court stated that intentional damage to the shareholder by Braun was sufficiently likely.
The shareholder - a Munich lawyer - had bought Wirecard shares for around 27,000 euros a year ago and sold them for a good 4,000 euros just before bankruptcy in June. In court, he then demanded 20,000 euros in damages. In order to secure the foreclosure, the OLG now ordered "real arrest in the entire assets of the applicant". The manager sitting in custody could, however, suspend the partial asset arrest by depositing the required sum plus interest.
For Braun this means: It could now be threatening. The plaintiff sees a precedent that could also help other damaged Wirecard shareholders. "Every shareholder can try to freeze some of Dr. Braun's assets," he said. A few days before the bankruptcy, Braun sold its own blocks of shares worth millions and is likely to have properties in Germany and abroad.
There is hardly anything left to get for the creditors
For a long time, Markus Braun was one of the wealthiest CEOs in Germany. In the meantime, his private fortune - on paper - was more than a billion euros. This not only included the 7 percent stake in Wirecard, but also extensive blocks of shares from other tech companies.
At the beginning of June, a few weeks before the collapse of the group, Braun had sold large parts of its Wirecard shares in a series of sales and received a total of 155 million euros, as Wirecard announced in several ad hoc releases. According to a report by the US financial news agency Bloomberg, Braun had deposited part of his shares as collateral for private loans - because of the falling price he had to sell ("margin call").
A few days before filing for bankruptcy at the end of June, Braun had sold another ten million shares through its MB Beteiligungsgesellschaft. The financial supervisory authority Bafin had therefore filed a complaint with the Munich public prosecutor's office on suspicion of insider trading.
Wirecard had granted air bookings of 1.9 billion euros and filed for bankruptcy. The Munich public prosecutor's office assumes that Wirecard has shown fake profits since 2015 and is investigating commercial gang fraud. The damage to the lending banks and investors could add up to 3.2 billion euros. According to an expert report by the insolvency administrator Michael Jaffé (57), the liabilities are only offset by a good 26 million euros in freely available assets. Overall, Wirecard is over-indebted with 2.8 billion euros - and can no longer be saved.
lhy / dpa