Company of “The Lion’s Den” investors insolvent

The Social Chain AG of the two “Die Höhle der Löwen” investors Georg Kofler and Ralf Dümmel is insolvent. While Kofler is vacating his post as CEO, Dümmel’s DS Group, which was taken over at the end of 2021, is apparently unaffected by the insolvency. The backgrounds.

In October 2021, the two “Die Höhle der Löwen” investors Georg Kofler and Ralf Dümmel officially became business partners. At that time, Kofler’s Social Chain AG took over all shares in Dümmel’s DS Group – for around 220 million euros. Now, less than two years later, the listed company is insolvent.

The Social Chain AG shared this in one Ad Hoc Notice via their website. According to this, the board of directors “came to the conclusion after a thorough examination that there is no longer a positive forecast for the continued existence of the company”. The company therefore wants to apply for the opening of insolvency proceedings “immediately”.

Social Chain AG insolvent: CEO Georg Kofler resigns

Only a little later the company shared in one further message also announced that Georg Kofler is resigning from his previous position as CEO with immediate effect. The Executive Board has therefore already accepted the corresponding declaration of resignation.

Stefan Kiwit, who was only appointed Chief Operating Officer in June 2023, has also resigned due to the development, according to Social Chain AG. The rest of the board is now preparing “an application for self-administration for the company to the responsible insolvency court”.

Insolvency instead of capital increase – because of incorrect bookings?

Actually, Social Chain AG had even planned a capital increase beforehand. However, nothing came of it. Because, as the company has now also announced, an investor has not met his contractually guaranteed payment obligations. Further negotiations had also failed.

The probable reason: Only recently did the financial supervisory authority Bafin at Social Chain AG millions of misbookings were found. Accordingly, the company incorrectly recorded payments from a bank loan and the sale of shares as cash flow from operating activities.

Social Chain AG insolvency: What will become of Ralf Dümmel’s DS Group?

Instead of a capital increase, it is now even going into insolvency. Ralf Dümmel’s DS group is apparently unaffected by this. Via Instagram the entrepreneur said that in retrospect he had to acknowledge that the merger of Social Chain AG and his DS Group “resulted in great burdens” for him personally as well as for the shareholders and employees. He added:

An important message is that the insolvency of Social Chain AG does not affect the business activities of the DS Group: its financing is contractually sealed off from the parent company. It will continue to operate under my management as usual.

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