ProSiebenSat.1 boss Rainer Beaujean has surprisingly resigned as CEO. On November 1, Bert Habets – previously a member of the Supervisory Board – will take over the post, as the group announced in Unterföhring near Munich. Beaujean is going by “mutual agreement with the board of directors”.
Habets (51) has been a member of the control committee since May 2022. Before that, he worked for RTL Group based in Luxembourg for many years of his career. At times he was also head of RTL – until Bertelsmann boss Thomas Rabe took over in spring 2019. RTL is part of the Bertelsmann portfolio. ProSiebenSat.1 now said that Habets, who was born in the Netherlands, has “sound experience in the management of global media companies and extensive know-how in the introduction and expansion of video streaming services”.
Beaujean did not last long in office
With the departure of Beaujeans, there is a change at the top of the ProSiebenSat.1 Group after a relatively short time, with annual sales of around 4.5 billion euros (2021). Big competitor in Germany is RTL. Beaujean had only held the position of CEO since the beginning of the year. In March 2020, CFO Beaujean initially became spokesman for the board – when it became known that the then boss Max Conze was going to the top after less than two years.
The news from Monday was not well received by investors: ProSieben’s share price fell by one percent in an initial reaction on the Tradegate trading platform.
When asked by the German Press Agency, a group spokeswoman said that the head of the supervisory board, Andreas Wiele, had made it clear that Habets’ appointment was in no way related to a possible influence of the Italian media group Media for Europe (MFE). . The TV company of ex-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, which holds a large stake in ProSiebenSat.1, has repeatedly spoken of a European network of broadcasters that they are striving for – but so far no concrete plans have been made. The relationship between the two media houses is considered to be rather cool. MFE recently announced that it would strengthen its presence in Germany with its own office in Munich.
