Published on 23 Sep 2020 on Bloomberg via Yahoo Finance

Wirecard’s Braun Has to Unwind Shares Pledged as Collateral

(Bloomberg) -- Wirecard AG’s former boss Markus Braun is unwinding a large portion of the shares he owns in the embattled payments processor, a stake he financed by borrowing against the stock’s value, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Former Chief Executive Officer Braun, who held 7% of Wirecard’s shares to rank as the company’s biggest shareholder, had funded his purchase through a 150 million-euro margin loan that was secured by the value of the underlying stock. Wirecard’s shares plunged 72% last week after billions in cash went missing, triggering a liquidation of the shares Braun had pledged as collateral, the person said, asking not to be identified because the information hasn’t been publicly disclosed.

Named CEO in 2002, Braun has put tens of millions of euros of his own funds into the firm and owned 8.7 million shares of Wirecard as of June 19, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. In late 2017, Braun secured a loan by pledging 4.2 million shares, or just under half of his personal stake, a regulatory filing shows. The original loan 150 million-euro loan was provided by Deutsche Bank AG, which has since gotten rid of the loan, according to people familiar with the matter.