‘CEO gave French group private confidential data’

The chairman of Malta International Airport, Austrian national Nikolaus Gretzmacher, has claimed that the airport’s former chief executive was providing confidential data to an interested buyer seeking to acquire SNC Lavalin’s share in the consortium that owns the airport.

Former CEO Markus Klaushofer filed an unfair dismissal claim in the Industrial Tribunal after turning down a €400,000 golden handshake from VIE, claiming his dismissal on 21 January 2015 was motivated by VIE’s demand for regular access to MIA’s financial data, which he said was highly sensitive.

But the MIA chairman has told the tribunal in an affidavit that Klaushofer was supplying Antin Infrastructure in Paris with adjusted traffic forecasts, ostensibly to have the consortium offer a higher price for the airport’s shares which would be acceptable to VIE, the majority shareholder.

VIE holds 57.1% of the shares in Malta Mediterranean Link, the airport operator which altogether owns 40% of MIA. MML’s other shareholders are SNC Lavalin, which VIE is now expected to acquire its shareholding; and the Nuance Group, whose representative is Maltese entrepreneur Michael Bianchi.

Gretzmacher’s affidavit reveals that Bianchi, who resigned as MIA director in June 2014, was now acting as the Maltese representative for Antin and Aèroports de la Cote d’Azur, the consortium interested in acquiring the Lavalin shares; and that Klaushofer was in constant contact with Bianchi and Antin, providing airport data in breach of a confidentiality agreement for directors to ensure compliance with market rules – ostensibly to become “friendly” with the new investor in an attempt to retain his executive position.

“Klaushofer must have been communicating and meeting with the consortium and providing information which the company was not authorized to provide to third parties… there was the possibility that the information being provided was projecting an image of the company which was not correct, through inflated figures and forecasts,” Gretzmacher said, claiming that the CEO was demanding such information from executive employees at MIA.

The MIA chairman said that after sacking the CEO, an investigation carried out by the airport revealed that Klaushofer had spent 220 days away from the island in 2014, “which in my view does not constitute sufficient time spent at the office on active duty in Malta for a person holding such a position.”

He said Klaushofer stayed in Paris twice during December 2014 and January 2015, ostensibly to meet Antin representatives, and that throughout his stay had asked MIA employees to email him the business plan for the coming 10 years, MIA forecasts, and data on non-aviation income. He also said that between July 2014 and January 2015, Klaushofer had “no fewer than 60 telephone calls with representatives of the consortium lasting in total over five hours and he sent more than 400 text messages to them.” Gretzmacher said Klaushofer had “particularly insensitive contact” with Michael Bianchi, with 42 calls and 382 SMSes.

“Klaushofer had an obligation to report immediately any attempt made by a representative of the consortium to establish contact… he not only violated this obligation, he also maintained close contact with the consortium over the course of several months during a critical phase for the sales negotiations.” 

In his original affidavit to the tribunal, Klaushofer said that VIE board member and former MIA chief executive Julian Jaeger had warned him that “things will get very dirty” unless he takes a golden handshake and leave his €175,907-a-year post.

Klaushofer says that his instructions to stop VIE’s “aggressive demands” for sensitive data from MIA, was unbeknown to other shareholders which also include the Maltese government and public shareholders.

According to Austrian news magazine Profil, the Central Public Prosecutor’s Office (WKSTA) in Austria has also stated that there was no case against Markus Klaushofer over a criminal complaint filed in Malta by MIA, that the former CEO had purchased a luxury Omega watch at a discount from one of the duty-free shops operated by the Nuance Group at MIA – the price was allegedly €3,000 cheaper. Klaushofer had denied the claim, and said he had acquired the watch at the best price offered by the retailer and not under cost price.