The former president of the financial supervisory authority Bafin is allowed to take on new tasks again a year after his retirement.
(Photo: Marc-Steffen Unger for Handelsblatt)
Frankfurt, Berlin A good year after stepping down as head of the financial regulator Bafin, Felix Hufeld is back in business. The 60-year-old was hired by the medium-sized financier Rantum Capital, said Dirk Notheis, who co-founded the company in 2013, the Handelsblatt. As a so-called industry partner, Hufeld Rantum Capital is to advise, among other things, on commitments in the financial services and fintech sectors. He is also involved in the management company of Rantum Capital and invests his own money in all funds launched by Rantum.
“The financial industry is currently in an epochal upheaval with new business models such as fintechs,” said Notheis. “Established market participants are being existentially challenged by digitization.” In these times, thanks to Hufeld’s expertise, there are attractive investment opportunities for Rantum Capital.
Rantum Capital provides equity and debt capital to SMEs through funds when traditional bank financing is not sufficient. The money comes not only from management and industrial partners, but above all from institutional investors such as insurers, pension funds and foundations.
Rantum Capital has a total of 16 industry partners who advise the management team on investment decisions. In addition to Hufeld, these include well-known former CEOs such as ex-Merck boss Karl-Ludwig Kley, Air Berlin founder Joachim Hunold and ex-Pro-Sieben-Sat1 boss Thomas Ebeling.
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From the public sector, the former governor of the Austrian central bank, Ewald Nowotny, and Frank-Jürgen Weise, the ex-head of the Federal Employment Agency, are among the party. The company is named after the town of Rantum on the holiday island of Sylt, where the idea of founding it originated.
Until 2012, Notheis was head of the German business of the US investment bank Morgan Stanley. He had to leave the institute in the course of the affair surrounding the energy supplier EnBW – because of his controversial role as an advisor when the EnBW shares were bought back by the former CDU-led state government. Proceedings against Notheis were later dropped.
One-year cooling-off period has expired
Hufeld resigned prematurely as Bafin boss due to the Wirecard scandal at the end of March 2021. Before the payment service provider went bankrupt in the summer of 2020, his authority had not given a good picture. After the fraud scandal became known, Hufeld admitted that his authority, like many other actors in the case, had not worked effectively enough. However, he did not want to know anything about a failure of the supervisory authority and repeatedly referred to the limited powers of the Bafin at Wirecard. “With what we knew then, our approach was appropriate and correct,” he said at the end of 2020.
Born in Mainz, he was not allowed to take on any new tasks for a year after leaving Bafin and thus also the Supervisory Board of the ECB. This cooling-off period expired in April 2022. The ECB must inform Hufeld for another year if he takes on new tasks. As long as this is not a job at a bank that is monitored by the ECB, there should not be any objection from the banking supervisory authority.
Hufeld has announced that he no longer wants to take on an operational role and no longer wants to work 70 to 80 hours a week. But he still feels too young and energetic to retire. That’s why he’s in the process of building up a small portfolio of consulting and supervisory mandates. Working for Rantum Capital is the first publicly known engagement.
Hufeld is aiming for a portfolio of consulting mandates
At Rantum Capital, Hufeld is breaking new ground in a way, as he has previously spent his career primarily with large corporations and government agencies. After studying law in Mainz, Freiburg and Harvard, he joined Boston Consulting in 1992. In 1999 Hufeld then moved to Dresdner Bank, two years later he took over the management of the insurance broker Marsh in Germany.
In 2013, Hufeld went to Bafin, where as executive director he was initially responsible for insurance supervision. In 2015 he took over the presidency – and immediately showed that he can get things done. A few months after he took office, the Bafin urged the then Deutsche Bank co-boss Anshu Jain to resign. Bafin also had a hand in the early departure of Deutsche Börse boss Carsten Kengeter in 2017.
To this day, Hufeld enjoys a high reputation in large parts of the financial sector and among other controllers. In public and in politics, however, his reputation has suffered greatly because of the Wirecard scandal.
More: Kehraus in the Wirecard scandal: Bafin boss Hufeld and deputy Roegele have to go