Montabaur, 31 May 2019. United Internet AG submits to the shareholders of Tele Columbus AG at the company's Annual General Meeting on 21 June 2019 its own proposal for the composition of the company's Supervisory Board. A corresponding nomination was submitted today.

In the motion for the Annual General Meeting, United Internet, as the largest single shareholder of Tele Columbus AG, expresses its concern about the current situation at Tele Columbus: "The price of Tele Columbus shares has fallen continuously in recent years. Compared to the IPO four years ago, the share price has fallen by around 80 percent and recently even dropped out of the SDAX. In addition, normalized EBITDA (adjusted for one-off effects) fell by 13.1 percent in the first quarter of 2019 compared with the same period of the previous year. As a result, the leverage of the company's credit liabilities also increased - it now amounts to 6.24 times EBITDA." United Internet currently holds 29.7 percent of the shares in Tele Columbus AG.

After almost the entire Tele Columbus management team was renewed last year, United Internet also considers a new start in the Supervisory Board to be urgently necessary. "We are convinced that the candidates proposed by us have the necessary expertise and the required experience in the technical and business areas to optimally fulfill the tasks of the Supervisory Board and to accompany the Management Board in the best possible way in the upcoming major challenges.

United Internet proposes the following candidates:
 

1. Claus Beck is CTO of 1&1 Versatel GmbH and former Director Network Engineering and Vice President Engineering at broadband provider Liberty Global, a proven expert in cable networks and technology.

2. Hüseyin Dogan is COO of 1&1 IONOS SE and Strato AG as well as former Managing Director Customer Service at Amazon and Operation Director at Paypal, an expert in customer service, digitization and online sales.

3. Dr. Susan Hennersdorf is an expert in marketing and sales as former marketing and sales director of EnBW AG and as former managing director of private customer sales at Vodafone Deutschland GmbH. She is already a member of the Supervisory Board.

4. Stefan Rasch has been a Senior Partner of the Boston Consulting Group for many years, providing strategic consulting in the areas of transformation, growth strategy, market launch and profit optimization, and is a recognized expert in these areas.

5. As former CFO of Vodafone Deutschland AG and Arcor AG, Dr. Volker Ruloff is both a finance and integration expert and a comprehensive expert on the telecommunications industry.

6. Michael Scheeren is not only a long-standing CFO of United Internet AG (from 1991 to 2001), but also an expert in the field of governance and finance as a member of several supervisory boards of our group.

About United Internet
With around 24 million fee-based customer contracts and around 37 million ad-financed free accounts, United Internet AG is a leading European internet specialist. At the heart of United Internet is a highperformance "Internet Factory" with approx. 9,100 employees, of which around 3,000 are engaged in product management, development and data centers. In addition to the high sales strength of its established brands (such as 1&1, GMX, WEB.DE, 1&1 IONOS, STRATO, 1&1 Versatel and the brands of Drillisch Online), United Internet stands for outstanding operational excellence with over 61 million customer accounts worldwide.

Contact partner
United Internet AG
Mathias Brandes
Phone +49 2602 96-1616
[email protected]