FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - The online broker Flatexdegiro needs a new boss after the turbulence of recent years. CEO Frank Niehage is stepping down on April 30 - around a month after major shareholder Bernd Fortsch publicly settled accounts with the manager's work. Flatexdegiro justified his departure on Monday with "differing views on strategic development" and the well-being of the company. The search for a successor is underway. For the time being, two board colleagues are to lead the company. The news was only briefly well received on the stock market.

After a price jump of around three percent, the Flatexdegiro share fell sharply. At midday, the share was down more than five percent at 9.69 euros, making it the biggest loser in the small-cap index SDax. So far this year, the share has lost around 13 percent. Since its record high of just under 30 euros in 2021, the share price has fallen by around two thirds.

In the press release, the Supervisory Board praised Niehage "for his extremely successful work over the past ten years". Under his leadership, Flatexdegiro has risen to become Europe's largest online broker - with 2.8 million customer accounts and customer assets under management of 58 billion euros. For 2024, Flatexdegiro once again expects record sales and consolidated earnings.

According to the company, the Supervisory Board is already looking for a successor to Niehage. The aim is to "conclude the search in the short term", it added. Until a successor takes over, Chief Financial Officer Benos Janos and Chief Technology Officer Stephan Simmang will lead the online broker as co-heads.

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

In March, major shareholder Fortsch settled accounts with the company management in an interview. He told "Wirtschaftswoche" that the fall in the share price and the low market value of around one billion euros was the result of "operational, strategic and also supervisory board mistakes". He also announced that he would draw consequences at the Annual General Meeting on June 4 - both for Niehage and for Supervisory Board Chairman Martin Korbmacher. With Niehage's departure, part of this has become superfluous.

In the interview, Fortsch criticized the lack of innovation at Flatexdegiro, an understanding of the market and "products that are super attractive for customers". For example, Flatex's previously simple fee structures are now just as opaque as those of its competitors. The company overslept the boom in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. Competitors Swissquote and Trade Republic are worth around four times as much on the stock exchange as Flatexdegiro.

Fortsch was particularly upset by the company's communication. He felt it had been a "disaster for years". The "high point of this undesirable development" was the notification about the Bafin investigation, which was sent out on a Saturday evening in December 2022.

Such communication errors were becoming more frequent at the company, said Fortsch. For example, Flatexdegiro appointed the then CFO Muhamad Chahrour as deputy CEO at the beginning of 2023. However, he announced his resignation just six months later. He was very surprised about this, said Fortsch.

Fortsch is not only a major shareholder of Flatexdegiro, but also founded the company's predecessor himself 25 years ago. He still directly and indirectly holds almost 20 percent of all shares in the company./stw/mne/jha/