RTL Group Forms UFA Sports

LUXEMBOURG/HAMBURG, April
8: RTL Group has announced it will begin investing again in key sports
marketing rights, reestablishing its UFA Sports division.

UFA Sports is
headquartered in Hamburg and will mainly be active in the international
marketing of media rights to sports events. UFA Sports will initially be
managed by Philip Cordes, who served as the CEO of the Sportfive Group from
July 2004 to February 2007, after holding various executive positions at UFA
Sports and later at Sportfive.

Elmar Heggen, the CFO of
the RTL Group and head of its Corporate Centre, said: “One of the three pillars
in our successful corporate strategy is a systematic diversification of our
revenue streams, along with tapping new lines of business. Our re-entry into
sports rights marketing is a step that makes perfect sense in rounding off our
portfolio. I am delighted that we were able to recruit Philip Cordes, an
executive we know and who has proven an successful manager, to build the
business for us.”

Cordes added: “We have
ambitious targets and are confident that we will very soon re-establish UFA
Sports as an important player on the market with contemporary, future-proof
business models.”

The UFA Sports rights
agency was originally established in 1988, as a wholly owned subsidiary of the
UFA group, which was merged into CLT-UFA in 1997, and later into the newly
created RTL Group in 2000. Through a series of mergers and transactions, the
former UFA Sports became a major part of what today is known as the Sportfive
Group. In November 2006, RTL Group sold its 25-percent stake in Sportfive to
the French media conglomerate Lagardère.

—By Mansha Daswani