Gigabell AG

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The Gigabell AG was a German Internet and telephone provider based in Frankfurt am Main . On September 15, 2000, the company became the first company listed on the Neuer Markt to file for bankruptcy and thus heralded the bursting of the dot-com bubble in Germany .

Company history

In 1996 , the former pop singer Rudolf Zawrel founded the provider IPF.NET (original abbreviation for Internet Provider Frankfurt ) under his stage name Daniel David , which initially primarily offered services for corporate customers. The subsidiaries Cybermedia (web design / development) and OKAY.NET (private customer access ) were added later. OKAY.NET in particular grew rapidly, as the monthly flat rate of DM 25 (plus telephone charges to the next PoP ) was very cheap for the time (however, restrictions had to be accepted for the price, for example, until 1999, all international data traffic ran almost exclusively via a 2Mbit Lead to the USA).

In 1999, IPF.NET was renamed Gigabell AG and went public on August 11, 1999. Since there was a solar eclipse in Germany that day, the motto was "When we go public, the sun rises twice". After initially only a moderate development (the share was well below the issue price of 38 euros for a long time), the price (like pretty much every other on the Neuer Markt) rose sharply and quickly reached highs of almost 132 euros. The dot-com euphoria peaked around the same time. Bank HSBC Trinkaus recommended the share with the prognosis that Gigabell would make an operating profit of 22 million DM in 2000. Bernd Förtsch , the publisher of the investor magazine Der Aktionär , saw “a global player of tomorrow” growing up in April 2000, when Gigabell was already swaying considerably .

Portfolio

In addition to the business areas of internet access and server housing originally established under IPF, attempts were made to become a full-fledged telecommunications provider by renaming and going public. Initially, the call-by-call numbers and infrastructure from Star Telecom ( 01098 ) were used, then the Federal Network Agency finally assigned their own CbC code with 01036 , and at around the same time the necessary central infrastructure was set up in Frankfurt. As a rule, the end customers had a completely normal telephone connection from Deutsche Telekom and were booked to the long-distance calling code 01036 from Gigabell using a preselection contract.

Gigabell offered call-by-call internet access under the names callOKAY.NET and myOKAY.NET , and there was also a cooperation with the then very influential Yahoo! , which used the Gigabell platform to market the CbC access under its own name.

On January 24th, 2000 Gigabell announced the takeover of 50 percent of the Internet telephony specialist dtg Deutsche Telefongesellschaft AG . The plan was u. a. a cooperation in the field of VoIP (Voice over IP). Gigabell promised further profits through an IPO of dtg. In the course of the takeover, dtg board members Stefan Kalmund and Marc Zube were released from their offices by the Gigabell Supervisory Board with immediate effect because they acted against the express will of the shareholders.

In the summer of 2000, free internet access financed by advertising was announced under the name freeOKAY.NET , but this offer never started.

With the offshoot playground.gigabell.net, Gigabell launched one of the first game server rentals in Germany.

insolvency

In the 1st quarter of 2000 the loss was already higher than sales. In July, the CEO lied to his shareholders by claiming that sales would quadruple to 127 million DM in the current year. Shortly thereafter, the financial figures for the first half of 2000 were published, which showed a loss. In the summer of 2000 the proceeds from the IPO were used up and attempts were made to raise new capital through an Anglo-Saxon investor group. After they did not transfer the promised payments, Gigabell finally filed for bankruptcy at the Frankfurt District Court on September 15, 2000. Dirk Pfeil was appointed as insolvency administrator , who sold customers and operations to the Finnish Jippii Group for 10 million D-Marks . This initially continued the business under the name Jippii GmbH , but about 1 year later the company also filed for bankruptcy and as a result most of the business was given up.

Gigabell was the first company on the Neuer Markt to file for bankruptcy and it wasn't to be the only one. In retrospect, it clearly showed how, in the course of a stock market bubble, less hard numbers than full-bodied announcements and extremely positive market sentiment can affect the price. In terms of business figures, Gigabell was never doing well, if they were published at all - due to poor bookkeeping, it was not even clear at times what assets the company had or how many people were actually employed. Insolvency administrator Pfeil directed not only serious allegations to the company founder, but also to the issuing banks , which in addition to HSBC Trinkaus also included DG Bank and Frankfurter Sparkasse . In the course of the bankruptcy, small investors in particular lost a lot of money.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Matthias Iken: Gigabell shock shakes the Neuer Markt. In: welt.de . September 18, 2000, accessed October 7, 2018 .
  2. ^ A b c Günter Ogger : The stock market fraud. How shareholders and investors are being fooled , C. Bertelsmann Verlag, Munich 2001, p. 53.
  3. ↑ First bankruptcy on the Neuer Markt: Gigabell files for bankruptcy ( Memento from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ http://www.manager-magazin.de/geld/artikel/0,2828,100549,00.html
  5. ↑ https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Schlamperei-beim-insolventen-Provider-Gigabell-26084.html