Kayser ankles top Premiere World post
Move marks third exec shuffle this year
Just two months after being re-appointed head of Premiere, Ferdinand Kayser is ankling his post and returning to his native Luxembourg. Kayser is the new prexy and CEO of Luxembourg-based satcaster SES ASTRA and will sit on the executive committee of parent group SES Global.
Premiere will be managed by Michael Boernicke, head of finance; Hans Seger, head of programming and marketing; and Helmut Stein, a former exec of mobile phone giant Nokia.
In September, an exec shakeup at Premiere parent KirchPayTV resulted in the dismissal of former CEO Manfred Puffer, who had been in the post for nine months.
With KirchPayTV shareholder BSkyB threatening to pull out, Premiere's future is uncertain. Major shareholder Kirch Group would be contractually obliged to buy back the News Corp.-controlled satcaster's 22% stake for at least $1.5 billion.
Rupert Murdoch also has an option to take over the web if Kirch is unable to buy back BSkyB's stake, which has resulted in growing speculation that Murdoch and long-time partner and Liberty Media CEO John Malone may take over the floundering web.
Liberty is poised to become Germany's biggest cable operator if its purchase of six regional cable systems is greenlit by German regulators.
