Gerhard Schmid (entrepreneur)

Gerhard Schmid (born May 22, 1952 in Selb ) is a German entrepreneur . He founded the service provider Mobilcom and the online service freenet.de .

education

After a commercial apprenticeship, the son of a funded mason and a housewife with a degree in business administration at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and the University of Regensburg as a hockey player in Nuremberg and Straubing. After graduating, he worked as an ice hockey coach in Selb and Bayreuth. In 1977 Schmid started at Hutschenreuther AG as an assistant to the board and rose to head of sales for the technical ceramics division and director of controlling for the entire company. In 1986, Schmid moved to the Ostseebad Damp as managing director , and in 1989 he became director of marketing and sales at Sixt AG .

Entrepreneurial activity in the telecommunications sector

MobilCom

In 1991 he founded Mobilcom GmbH & Co KG, initially as a service provider for the mobile communications sector, which in 1997 under his leadership was converted into a stock corporation and listed on the stock exchange.

In 2000, France Télécom acquired 28.5% of Mobilcom AG. At the beginning of 2002 there was a dispute between the major Mobilcom shareholders France Télécom and Schmid over the speed of network expansion and stock options for dealers, which Schmid secured with shares in a company. In March 2002 Schmid undertook to sell his shares to an investor to be provided by France Télécom. With the voting rights of France Télécom - Schmid was not entitled to vote in this vote - the general meeting in May 2002 refused to discharge Schmid as member of the board. In June France Télécom terminated the cooperation agreement. Schmid was then dismissed as chairman of the board by the supervisory board . In November 2002 Schmid transferred his shares and those of Millenium GmbH to a trustee , the former RTL boss Helmut Thoma .

freenet.de

In 1998 Schmid founded the free online service freenet.de, which quickly became the most important competitor of the established Internet providers T-Online and AOL in Germany. In 1999 the online service went public under Schmid's leadership as freenet AG .

Legal disputes

Germaniahafen

Schmid wanted to convert the Germaniahafen in the Kiel Fjord on the Hörn within 18 months and move apartments, offices, restaurants and shops. The high-rise center at Germaniahafen was created . When the Landesbank Sachsen, the financing bank, terminated the loan agreement due to the decline in the price of the Mobilcom share, Schmid stopped the construction work. In February 2003 he applied to the Flensburg District Court (Az .: 56 IN 60/03) to open insolvency proceedings over his assets. The bankruptcy proceedings were opened in May 2003. In 2009, the Kiel Regional Court found that Landesbank Sachsen's loan termination was unjustified and ineffective.

Irrespective of this, Schmid's insolvency administrator Jan Wilhelm sued Dresdner Bank (now Commerzbank ), HSH Nordbank and Deutsche Bank , as they are said to have failed to comply with a standstill agreement entered into with Schmid and the liquidation administrator's right of exploitation when realizing the shares deposited with the banks .

Mobilcom AG

Schmid and Millenium GmbH sued France Télécom for damages and took action against the resolutions of the annual general meeting of Mobilcom AG. These actions for rescission ended in a settlement with the new Mobilcom board.

As part of the agreement with France Télécom, the former RTL managing director Helmut Thoma took over more than 20 million shares from Schmid and Millenium GmbH as trustee . Schmid's insolvency administrator sued Helmut Thoma because he is said to have failed to adequately comply with his information obligations and his asset management obligations. This was confirmed by the Schleswig Higher Regional Court and legally convicted of Thoma.

In May 2013, shortly before the end of the 10-year limitation period, the Kiel Regional Court opened main proceedings against Schmid on charges of insolvency offense. The prosecution accuses him between 2002 and 2004 - 2.9 million Mobilcom shares with a former value of 14 million euros after - the liquidator past Liechtenstein to have moved to a depot of his wife, who is also accused of aiding and abetting, .

Dealer Motivation Program

In 2003, the public prosecutor in Kiel filed a lawsuit against Schmid 's stock option deal in connection with the dealer motivation program for building up UMTS . The district court in Kiel decided at the beginning of 2007 not to initiate main proceedings against Schmid and to dismiss the lawsuit. The public prosecutor's office appealed against this decision. On January 18, 2009 Schmid was convicted of deliberate bankruptcy. After the defense appealed against the judgment, the proceedings were referred to the Federal Court of Justice . On April 29, 2010, the Federal Court of Justice reversed the judgment of the Kiel Regional Court and referred the criminal proceedings back to the Kiel Regional Court. Schmid is represented by FDP politician Wolfgang Kubicki, among others .

Further engagements

Schmid was married to Sibylle Schmid-Sindram . Schmid was the managing director of Bonus Strom , an electricity provider that is now run by his wife.

Schmid has been working as a consultant for start-ups since mid-2016 . Since 2019 he has been working as Chief Operating Officer at the Berlin online marketing agency LEAP /.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Spiegel: Portrait of Gerhard Schmid: Offensives Schlitzohr , May 2000
2. ↑ Handelsblatt: Mobilcom boss Gerhard Schmidt - billionaire without airs , March 22, 2000
3. ↑ Bloomberg Businessweek: Resume: Gerhard Schmid , June 30, 2002
4. ↑ Manager Magazin: From niche provider to stock market star , March 32, 2000
5. ↑ Bloomberg Businessweek: MobilCom's Schmid: Twilight of a Titan , June 30, 2002
6. ↑ Manager Magazin: 85.89 percent against Gerhard Schmid , May 30, 2002
7. ^ Wallstreet online: FTD: Helmut Thoma trustee for Mobilcom shares in Schmid , November 14, 2002
8. ↑ Manager Magazin: Internet subsidiary is due at the end of October , August 10, 1999
9. ↑ Welt.de: Kai City - Working and living on the water September 14, 2009
10. ^ Heise online: Court opens insolvency proceedings for ex-Mobilcom boss Schmid , May 6, 2003
11. ↑ Manager Magazin: Peace with Gerhard Schmid , August 21, 2006
12. ^ Andreas Wilkens: Court opens proceedings against Mobilcom founder Schmid. heise.de, May 16, 2013, accessed on May 16, 2013 . 
13. ↑ T-Online: Mobilcom founder Gerhard Schmid in front of the Federal Court of Justice ( memento of the original dated November 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , April 10, 2010 
14. ↑ FTD: BGH reprimands judgment against ex Mobilcom boss ( memento of April 16, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), April 15, 2010
15. ^ Federal Court of Justice press release: Federal Court of Justice overturns the conviction of the former CEO of MobilCom AG , April 29, 2010
16. ↑ Clear points victory for Sybille Schmid-Sindram. Retrieved August 19, 2018.
17. ↑ Claudia Wiggenbröker: Gerhard Schmid: A life after Mobilcom - ard.de. Retrieved November 23, 2017 . 
18. ↑ SEO, CRO & Performance Marketing - highly specialized experts | LEAP /. In: LEAP / - Agency for Traffic & Conversion Optimization. Retrieved June 17, 2020 (German).