Klaus Esser

Klaus Esser (born November 21, 1947 in Oberhausen ) is a German lawyer , manager and former CEO of Mannesmann AG. In this function, he agreed to the takeover of Mannesmann AG by Vodafone .

Career

After graduating from the humanistic Landfermann-Gymnasium in Duisburg , Esser studied law in Geneva , Munich and Tübingen . In Tübingen he became a member of the Corps Rhenania Tübingen , to which his father-in-law Joachim Zahn also belonged. Following his state exams, he completed an MBA at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) . He then worked as a lawyer in New York from 1976 to 1977 before starting his career at Mannesmann AG.

In 1978 Esser received his doctorate from the University of Regensburg .

In 1994 he became a member of the board and in 1998 he was promoted to deputy chairman. A year later he took over the post of CEO from Joachim Funk . He held this position until the hostile takeover of Mannesmann by Vodafone in 2000. Mannesmann was subsequently smashed. Klaus Esser was suspected of having received unjustified payments under the influence of Vodafone in the form of bonuses totaling 59 million DM, which were received from, among others, the CEO of Deutsche Bank AG and Supervisory Board Chairman of Mannesmann AG, Josef Ackermann , and IG Metall - Chairman Klaus Zwickel had been approved.

Under Esser's responsibility, the Mannesmann Group was primarily geared towards the telecommunications market segment . So they took over the British mobile operator Orange and intended to outsource the unprofitable traditional Mannesmann tube business. In the end, however, this only happened after the takeover by Vodafone.

Esser worked for the private equity company General Atlantic from 2000 to 2014 ; he continues to sit on the supervisory boards of several companies.

The Mannesmann Trial

His role in the takeover negotiations between Mannesmann and Vodafone were ultimately also the subject of investigations as part of the so-called Mannesmann trial , which began on January 21, 2004 before the Düsseldorf regional court and ended in the first instance with an acquittal . However, this acquittal was overturned by the Federal Court of Justice on December 21, 2005 due to a revision by the public prosecutor's office . Since October 26, 2006, the matter has been heard again before the Düsseldorf Regional Court and ended with a controversial termination of the proceedings against all defendants under Section 153a of the Code of Criminal Procedure in return for a payment. This is based on income; Esser had to pay 1.5 million euros to the state treasury and non-profit organizations.

Memberships in supervisory boards

amedes Holding AG, Düsseldorf (2008–2015)
TDS Informationstechnologie AG - today Fujitsu TDS (2003 to 2007)
IXOS Software AG , Grasbrunn
CompuGroup Medical SE, Koblenz (since 2003; since December 2015 as Chairman of the Supervisory Board)
Navigon AG, Hamburg (until 2011)
ThinxNet GmbH, Munich - Member of the Advisory Board (since 2016)