HSV: Kühne hits back with 120 million euros in the war of investors

The contrast could hardly be greater: During the week, Hamburger SV happily said goodbye to the recently deceased club icon Uwe Seeler with a big funeral service in the Volksparkstadion. It was as if the troubled club could breathe a sigh of relief from the chaos the club is sinking into, to the chagrin of their fans – again. This time, the trouble between the different factions has nothing to do with the team or the coach Tim Walter. Although they recently missed the fourth attempt to get promoted back to the first Bundesliga, they made a solid start to the new season and are still striving for promotion. It is doubtful whether this is realistic in view of the fierce power struggles.

Because the hitting and stabbing that has been going through the club for months is reminiscent of the worst times under former President Bernd Hoffmann, when the sporting decline picked up speed. The current protagonists: investor and CFO Thomas Wüstefeld, manager Jonas Boldt, investor Klaus-Michael Kühne and the split supervisory board under HSV President Marcell Jansen. It’s complicated.

The timing of the offer is explosive

The latest highlight is the offer from investor Kühne to put 120 million euros into HSV and thus restructure the heavily indebted club. It goes without saying that accepting the offer would mean a complete takeover of power by Kühne at HSV despite the 50+1 rule.

The timing of the offer is explosive, which burst on Thursday afternoon in the middle of coach Tim Walter’s press conference for the next game against Arminia Bielefeld and immediately overshadowed everything sporting. It came shortly before the meeting of the supervisory board on Friday evening, which is turning into a kind of showdown even more than before.

Of course, Kühne attaches conditions to his investment and presented a ten-point plan. This stipulates that Kühne Holding AG will increase its stake in HSV AG from 15 to 39.9 percent. For this alone, 60 to 80 million euros would flow. The HSV general meeting would have to approve the deal, because so far an investor can only acquire a maximum of 24.9 percent of the shares. The rule should be overturned.

Kühne wants to shape HSV according to his ideas

But not only that: Kühne wants to shape the club according to his ideas. For this he wants to introduce a new “board structure”, which is to be developed by experts. In addition to two representatives of HSV, there were two Kühne people as watchdogs. He also wants to take over the naming rights to the stadium for ten years (up to 40 million euros for the Uwe-Seeler-Satdion), put money into debt reduction and pay for the stadium renovation that is necessary until the 2024 European Championship.

Kuehne’s plan is also aimed directly at Chief Financial Officer Wüstefeld, who himself holds 5.11 percent of the shares with his medical company Calejo GmbH, which he bought from Kuehne last October. Since then, Wüstefeld has made rapid progress at HSV and is practically the head of HSV on the reduced board. The only question is how long, because Wüstefeld has messed with Kühne. The reason: Wüstefeld wants back part of the 14.2 million euros that he had transferred to Kühne Holding AG for the HSV shares because he feels cheated.

His accusation is related to the fact that money has seeped away in the heavily indebted club. Two years ago, HSV sold the stadium grounds in the Volkspark to the city for 23.5 million euros. Condition: The club puts the money mainly into the renovation of the stadium so that it is fit as a venue for the EM 2024. Then Corona came and the money was needed to plug the holes. Allegedly, Wüstefeld was not correctly informed by his predecessor Frank Wettstein about the true extent of the “disappeared” millions. Wüstefeld has therefore sent his lawyers forward, and a lawsuit is pending. Kühne then announced that he hoped that Wüstefeld would be “quite soon history” at HSV.

Wüstefeld wants to renegotiate the price of his share

Hamburg media suspect that Wüstefeld wants to renegotiate the purchase of the HSV shares with Kühne because he had contractually committed to acquiring more shares and the “payments for this are months overdue” (“Hamburger Abendblatt”).

As if that weren’t enough of a source of conflict, the split in the club’s leadership is forced by another dispute. Wüstefeld has been fighting one skirmish after another with sports director Jonas Boldt for months. First it was about sports director Michael Mutzel, who was fired by Boldt, then about the millions that were refused to strengthen the squad, which Wüstefeld did not want to release. Boldt sees the long-awaited promotion to the first Bundesliga at risk.

At the supervisory board meeting on Friday evening, Wüstefeld wants to present a financing plan for the stadium renovation and Boldt should talk about the sporting plans. But whether it will ever come to that is an open question. A group of supervisory board members around HSV President Marcell Jansen supports Wüstefeld, another holds to the sports board. As a precaution, Wüstefeld’s opponents are said to have prepared a motion to vote out the CFO. And then there’s Kühne’s unbelievable €120 million offer. The madness has method at HSV.

It is striking that the conflicts since Wüstefeld’s entry into the club last October as a shareholder have increased. That may be due to his dual roles as investor and chief financial officer. An independent CFO might make different decisions than one associated with the club. But it would be unfair to blame Wüstefeld for the misery alone, after all, the club from Hamburg-Stellingen has been regularly dismantling itself for years. And the immense debts come from earlier times.

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