Endor AG dismiss Fanatec CEO Thomas Jackermeier

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Today, the supervisory board of Endor AG has decided on the dismissal of CEO Thomas Jackermeier, effective at the end of March 30, 2024, thereby fulfilling a key condition set by the lending banks for the extension of the standstill agreement until June 30, 2024.
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Endor AG is in negotiations with lending banks regarding a standstill agreement until June 30, 2024 with regard to the existing loans. The standstill agreement is subject to conditions. The Endor Supervisory Board will discuss these conditions today and, if necessary, pass a resolution.
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Reporting here from OverTake (RaceDepartment):


The inimitable founder and CEO of Fanatec, Thomas Jackermeier is set to depart his post at the top of the German sim racing equipment manufacturer.

Parent company Endor AG, which trades publicly on the Munich, Hamburg and Stuttgart stock exchanges, issued a brief statement yesterday (28th Mach) announcing the change.

"Today, the supervisory board of Endor AG has decided on the dismissal of CEO Thomas Jackermeier, effective at the end of March 30, 2024, thereby fulfilling a key condition set by the lending banks for the extension of the standstill agreement until June 30, 2024," reads the brief statement, submitted by Matthias Kosch, Chief Financial Officer and Executive Board Member.

Here, it appears that Endor (Fanatec) claims that Jackermeier's departure is directly linked to a loan standstill agreement – whereby, typically, a repayment schedule on existing loans is halted under the proviso of certain requirements.

In a separate statement released earlier on the 28th, the Landshut-based company explained that it was "in negotiations with lending banks regarding a standstill agreement until June 30, 2024" and that the "standstill agreement is subject to conditions."

Several key changes have happened recently to Endor's Supervisory Board. Kosch replaced Andras Semsey as CFO at the end of last year, and Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Oliver F. Gosemann, resigned in February 2024.
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Translated:

The Supervisory Board has decided to dismiss the former CEO and founder of Endor AG, Thomas Jackermeier, from his position on the Management Board effective March 30, 2024. Jackermeier will remain with the company in another function. In addition, the Supervisory Board will appoint a Chief Restructuring Officer (CRO) in the near future. This will fulfill key conditions set by the lending banks for the extension of the standstill agreement until June 30, 2024.

Siegfried Stieger, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Endor AG: "In order to secure the financial future of the company and reach a forward-looking agreement with the lending banks, we are forced to reorganize the Management Board team. We will continue to press ahead with the ongoing optimization of the company since the appointment of the remaining Management Board members and initiate a comprehensive restructuring with the timely support of a CRO. At the same time, it is of central importance for us to keep founder Thomas Jackermeier actively involved in the company. No one in the sim racing market has a comparable network and feel for market trends. I am delighted that Thomas has agreed to take on this new role." In the future, Thomas Jackermeier will support product management in particular, continue to take care of strategic partnerships and support the future CRO in the restructuring measures.
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Wow. Was this guy the problem? Personally, it seems fanatec was infected by dudebro’s…and i say that because im dealing with a years long problem myself. They are brutal stupid entitled creatures. Ugh. Anyway!

I hate seeing founders get shoved out..but they have been a profound dumpster fire..

Do we think this is a solution or scapegoat?
 
the supervisory board of Endor AG has decided on the dismissal of CEO Thomas Jackermeier, effective at the end of March 30, 2024, thereby fulfilling a key condition set by the lending banks for the extension of the standstill agreement
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Well... that's a sentence.

Okay, it's not. It's part of a sentence. But nonetheless... what a thing to say.

I'm glad they add "loan standstill agreement" later, because "standstill agreement" has a couple of meanings, but in essence this reads like the banks (creditors) were ready to take legal action to strip assets from Endor to fulfil unpaid loans but agreed to hold off and forego interim interest to allow Endor time to repay, and they demanded the personnel change in order to extend this agreement.

Now, I'm not a hardcore finance nerd, so I might be wrong... but that's shocking stuff and I can't even guess what the link between the loans and the boardroom change could be - especially if he's still at the company but moved over to product...
 
Famine
Well... that's a sentence.

Okay, it's not. It's part of a sentence. But nonetheless... what a thing to say.

I'm glad they add "loan standstill agreement" later, because "standstill agreement" has a couple of meanings, but in essence this reads like the banks (creditors) were ready to take legal action to strip assets from Endor to fulfil unpaid loans but agreed to hold off and forego interim interest to allow Endor time to repay, and they demanded the personnel change in order to extend this agreement.

Now, I'm not a hardcore finance nerd, so I might be wrong... but that's shocking stuff and I can't even guess what the link between the loans and the boardroom change could be.
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As a Fanatec-Fanatic, I find this pretty worry-some. I hope they can iron out these, uh, 'financial kinks' and keep the company chugging along. I think Thomas has done well at staying pretty cutting edge in the sim-racing sector and forcing other companies like Logi and TM to keep up and as a result, us primary console users get the win.

I guess this means my hopes for some hydraulic pedals seem pretty bleak.


Jerome
 
In addition, the Supervisory Board will appoint a Chief Restructuring Officer (CRO) in the near future. This will fulfill key conditions set by the lending banks for the extension of the standstill agreement
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It indeed seems like they are having very serious problems and are all but bankrupt.

Edit: And I'm sure there are a couple of Chinese companies that'd love to snatch the brand and, especially, its tasty console licenses.
 
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They talk about a bad warehouse move causing delays that never got resolved? Are there still customers waiting on orders that never came?
 
Famine
Well... that's a sentence.

Okay, it's not. It's part of a sentence. But nonetheless... what a thing to say.

I'm glad they add "loan standstill agreement" later, because "standstill agreement" has a couple of meanings, but in essence this reads like the banks (creditors) were ready to take legal action to strip assets from Endor to fulfil unpaid loans but agreed to hold off and forego interim interest to allow Endor time to repay, and they demanded the personnel change in order to extend this agreement.

Now, I'm not a hardcore finance nerd, so I might be wrong... but that's shocking stuff and I can't even guess what the link between the loans and the boardroom change could be - especially if he's still at the company but moved over to product...
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It basically means the company is bankrupt, but the banks think they still have some chance of getting some money back, as long as the current CEO isn't there, because they had no faith in him.
 
DC5Remy
They talk about a bad warehouse move causing delays that never got resolved? Are there still customers waiting on orders that never came?
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Yes. The boards are still on fire.

Havent’t bothered to rma my dd pro, let alone my dd extreme as there doesn’t seem much point yet.
 
This makes interesting reading, maybe becuase they are in so much debt, and the share price has dropped to the lowest every down over 79.69%, they dont have any money to offset the debt, no money to buy any stock, to make any profits, so they will not be able to make any profit, and now users will stop trying to purchase. I think that they will go bankrupt by the middle of this year

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Stu
 
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Jaguar XKR
This makes interesting reading, maybe becuase they are in so much debt, and the share price has dropped to the lowest every down over 79.69%, they dont have any money to offset the debt, no money to buy any stock, to make any profits, so they will not be able to make any profit, and now users will stop trying to purchase. I think that they will go bankrupt by the middle of this year

simplywall.st

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Warren Buffett famously said, 'Volatility is far from synonymous with risk.' It's only natural to consider a company's...
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Stu
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I can say for sure that while I was considering going to a Fanatec system, although I had been holding off because of reading about various product issues (plus I'm a tightwad), that's completely off the table now. I'll stick with my ancient G920, thanks.

Will they pull it out and keep going? I don't know but it's not looking good. Of course, I also thought MSG would never release LMU, so I will once again be happy to be proven wrong.
 
DC5Remy
They talk about a bad warehouse move causing delays that never got resolved? Are there still customers waiting on orders that never came?
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Still numerous reports of people who have not had Black Friday orders fulfilled! Not to mention the seemingly common habit they have of saying they have stock, allowing orders to be placed that they know they can't meet. A practice that screams 'we need the cash'.
 
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Outlaw7
I think with some transparency and better customer service the company could survive.
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Surprised that nothing has been posted on their web site, at least in the US. Been a long time customer and generally satisified, so I hope they can sort it. But glad I held off on the DD+, however if they are going to survive, its probably going to get a price hike.
 
Now when I'm using my CSL DD I find myself thinking, "please don't fail me now". I'm pretty sure things will work out but there's that little hint of doubt that creeps into you mind now.
 
Now it makes sense why they moved from business-unfriendly California, to business-friendly Texas.

When/if they go bankrupt, and when/if my Fanatec gear starts kicking the bucket….at least this will force my hand away from console sim racing, and on over into the PC realm.


FWIW, my money is on Sony helping them find some Chinese company to buy them out - that wants both the Sony Licensing, and the IRL Motorsports sponsorship rights

…or just Sony buying it at discount for themselves
 
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I'm not a fan of their stuff but I am a huge fan of competition. I am hopeful that bringing on a new CEO will be exactly what they need to get back on the right track.

I know this isn't exactly the same, but I have seen many times in the military that the commander of the base can be the person that makes the base perform awesome or they can make it an absolute **** show that most everyone hates. It's crazy to see how much influence and power just 1 person has.

Fanatec has been going through a very rough time in the past year or 2. During that time, they all should have been fully aware of how bad their image was damaged because of the lack of transparency and communication. They could have avoided a large amount of their current financial issues by simply communicating with the customers. All they needed to do was to hire a few more customer support reps that could be active in the forums and social media. A simple update of telling the customers that they value them and apologize for the delays with their orders would have been extremely helpful. Instead, they chose to ignore the customers and keep them in the dark... Doesn't matter if the customer spends $5 or $5,000, they all should have been given weekly updates on the order status or warranty support.


Tldr; they tried to ignore the customers and now it's biting them in the ass.
 
Yard_Sale
my money is on Sony helping them find some Chinese company to buy them out
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Sony might not be the best for that...
In one of their press releases from january Endor reported that they are sitting on chips/pcbs that might be unusable, back then they didn't publish what chips or who the "license giver" was. In early february Fanatec posted publicly that they had problems with the approval from Sony (related to revisioned "security chips"?).
endor.ag

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It’s worth mentioning that one of the the reasons fanatec is where it is at this point is due to sony holding the approval process hostage for a questionable period of time. That compounding with the black Friday software glitch, which apparently ate and annihilated a bunch of orders, created a massive cash problem at the company. Don’t get me wrong. They made bad decisions, rolled the dice at the wrong time and basically were corporate idiots. But it didn’t happen in a vacuum…and i would absolutely love to know what went down between fanatec and pd / sony when it comes to the dd pro’s sdk.

Ps: i really wouldn’t want to see sony owning fanatec. I used their camera’s professionally for 10 yrs. In some ways, they were innovative but man…the way they split features between models, broke stuff without fixing for months, etc etc. was brutal and infuriating. Besides, innovation rarely comes from whales.

Pps! Sony is still technically slow walking the approval process atm in that the dd+ had a pre Christmas release date initially and we are in April and Sony/pd have only ninja nerfed the ffb in the dd+\extreme the previous patch. At this point i think we’re going to see the world series finals before gt7 gets around to supporting their ‘official,’ wheel.

..which kinda smells of the 💩
 
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Mornin' peeps,
Does anyone around here has the Fanatec H pattern / sequential shifter and can confirm that it is compatible with Crew Motorfest or GT7.
And most of all is it a good piece of kit.

I'm about to finance Fanatec and give them my bucks in exchange for that big chunky boy.
Any info on that is as always highly appreciated 😊

Edit: oopsie Looks like this is the wrong place to ask this question... Sorry
Anyway my question is still valid 😅
 
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PirovacBoy
Mornin' peeps,
Does anyone around here has the Fanatec H pattern / sequential shifter and can confirm that it is compatible with Crew Motorfest or GT7.
And most of all is it a good piece of kit.

I'm about to finance Fanatec and give them my bucks in exchange for that big chunky boy.
Any info on that is as always highly appreciated 😊

Edit: oopsie Looks like this is the wrong place to ask this question... Sorry
Anyway my question is still valid 😅
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Its worth the money. Does what it claims too and feels pretty durable. Its great in vr with the older cars as you can really feel the older suspensions shimmy shake with the cars movement as you coax it around tracks. The only complaint is a lack of motors. It would have been great to feel the hum of the rpm’s and the braaap of borking a shift. Would buy again if introduced with full force option!
 
Watching the opening round of GTWC Europe this weekend at Paul Ricard, I wonder what is going to happen to their title sponsorship of that series if they indeed do file for bankruptcy?
 
Jezza819
Watching the opening round of GTWC Europe this weekend at Paul Ricard, I wonder what is going to happen to their title sponsorship of that series if they indeed do file for bankruptcy?
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That had a cash crunch because their inventory/accounting software, at least the web facing part of it took a massive dump. At the same time pirates were hitting cargo ships, also, Sony//PD clowned them hard with the dd+|extreme. To be fair sony is still clowning them on that one. Then they turtled for a while. Not great, but its not like people don’t wan’t their products or anything like that.

Jezza819
Watching the opening round of GTWC Europe this weekend at Paul Ricard, I wonder what is going to happen to their title sponsorship of that series if they indeed do file for bankruptcy?
Click to expand...
That had a cash crunch because their inventory/accounting software, at least the web facing part of it took a massive dump. At the same time pirates were hitting cargo ships, also, Sony//PD clowned them hard with the dd+|extreme. To be fair sony is still clowning them on that one. Then they turtled for a while. Not great, but its not like people don’t wan’t their products or anything like that.
 
Interestingly, the recent news seems to have not been picked up anywhere...

See:
endor.ag

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Veröffentlichung einer Insiderinformation nach Artikel 17 Absatz 1 der Verordnung (EU) 596/2014 über Marktmissbrauch Endor AG: Andres Ruff als neuer Vorstandsvorsitzender bestimmt Landshut, 15. April 2024 – Der Aufsichtsrat der Endor AG hat heute den amtierenden CRO, Herrn Andres Ruff, mit...
endor.ag endor.ag

Temp CRO becoming the new Fanatec CEO within 5 days...??!
The person, Andres Ruff, coming from a food industry background is a good fit...??!
Who was removed from his previous CEO position due to mistrust in 2020/21 (at Toennis, an meat producing company, that itself had a huge scandal in 2021/2 for breaching corona guidelines, infecting 2000+ of it's workers due to bad working conditions - or so the high level media summary of the news..).

Sooooo many questions and oddities in that one...
Let's see how this plays out. Maybe he is the financial & restructuring guru the banks seems to trust him to be that fanatec apparently desperately needs...
 
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You couldn't make this up! I love Fanatec and their products but..........

I don't know what to say, seriously they have chosen this guy to fix this mess?

english.fleischwirtschaft.de

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