JULY 16, 2001

Haffa getting out?

THOMAS HAFFA, the head of EM.TV is understood to be on the verge of selling his shares in the company he founded.

THOMAS HAFFA, the head of EM.TV is understood to be on the verge of selling his shares in the company he founded. It is believed that Nickolaus Becker, the former chairman of EM.TV's supervisory board, has made Mr. Haffa an offer for his stake in the company. The deal could only go ahead if Leo Kirch agreed to the sale as he has the first option to buy Haffa's shares.

Haffa ran into trouble last year when he bought into the Formula 1 group of companies. The collapse of the EM.TV share price led to the effective takeover of the F1 stake by Kirch. The disappearance of Haffa will make little difference to F1 as he has been playing a back seat role ever since. Leo Kirch would probably like to buy EM.TV as it would give him access to The Muppet Show but raising the money might be problem as Kirch has been highly acquisitive of late and has been struggling to fund all his moves.