FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - Even after the departure of CEO Frank Niehage, a turbulent Annual General Meeting is looming at online broker Flatexdegiro. This is because major shareholder Bernd Fortsch now wants to join the supervisory board himself - and have its chairman Martin Korbmacher recalled. Fortsch's company GfBk Gesellschaft für Borsenkommunikation submitted a corresponding motion for the shareholders' meeting on June 4. However, the news did not trigger any major reactions on the stock exchange.

The Flatexdegiro share price did rise by around one percent at times on Monday morning. However, it later hovered around Friday's closing price again and was last up 0.2 percent. Flatexdegiro had only published Fortsch's applications late on Friday evening. Investors were therefore able to let the news sink in over the weekend.

The plans of the major shareholder are not entirely unexpected. After all, he had already settled accounts with the online broker's management team in an interview with "Wirtschaftswoche" in March and announced consequences for CEO Niehage and Supervisory Board Chairman Korbmacher. After Niehage left his job on April 30, Korbmacher was the only one left in the spotlight.

In the interview, Fortsch harshly criticized the company management for the decline in the share price. This was the result of an "operational, strategic and also Supervisory Board-related misguided development". He also criticized the lack of innovation and "products that are super attractive to customers". For example, Flatex's previously simple fee structures are now just as opaque as those of its competitors. The company had overslept the boom in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.

If the shareholders vote in favor of Korbmacher's dismissal, they will elect Axel Horger to the board in his place. According to their information, he would be a member independent of GfBk, the press release continued.

Fortsch is also standing for election himself. In any case, there will be a vacancy for him. This is because Herbert Seuling is reportedly stepping down from the board at the end of the Annual General Meeting. Personal reasons were given for Seuling's withdrawal. Seuling is also a member of Fortsch's other company Heliad, which also holds a stake in Flatexdegiro.

Bernd Fortsch is not only a major shareholder of Flatexdegiro, but also founded the company's predecessor 25 years ago. Directly and indirectly, he still holds almost 20 percent of all shares in the company.

Meanwhile, from the current perspective, the Annual General Meeting is likely to take place without a CEO. According to information from April, the Supervisory Board is looking for a possible successor to Niehage. For the time being, however, the company will be managed by two fellow board members.

Niehage had been criticized for some time. While trading by small investors on Flatexdegiro's platforms had climbed to unprecedented heights during the coronavirus pandemic, the volume of business collapsed with the rise in inflation and interest rates as well as the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. In addition, the financial supervisory authority Bafin identified a number of deficiencies in a special audit of the broker in 2022 - and increased the company's capital requirements.

The Flatexdegiro share price had risen sharply thanks to the boom in share trading during the coronavirus pandemic. From the beginning of 2020 to mid-2021, it rose from around 6 euros to almost 30 euros. From then on, however, things went downhill: by Christmas 2022, the share price was back at the level it had been at before the coronavirus crisis. Since then, and especially after the presentation of the latest quarterly figures at the end of April, it has finally risen again to more than 12 euros.

In total, Flatexdegiro is now valued at around 1.4 billion euros on the stock exchange. However, the gap between Flatexdegiro and its competitor Swissquote remains large: The Swiss company has a market capitalization of the equivalent of around 4 billion euros./stw/he/mne/men