Daniel Ritz will step down as CEO of Tele Columbus at the end of his contract period on January 31, 2023 and will leave the German cable operator at his own request.
Markus Oswald (pictured), most recently Head of Housing Industry at Vodafone Deutschland, will take over the position effective February 1, 2023.
“On behalf of the Supervisory Board and the employees of Tele Columbus, I would like to thank Daniel Ritz for his excellent work and achievements. With the Fiber Champion Strategy, which bears his signature, he has given the company a new mission, defined a clear direction and made significant progress in the fiber network and broadband penetration. With the takeover by Kublai, he also brought financially strong partners on board and thus laid the foundation for the implementation of the strategy,” said Marc van’t Noordende, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Tele Columbus.
Kublai is the majority shareholder of Tele Columbus with a stake of around 95%. The company is 60% owned by Morgan Stanley Infrastructure and 40% by United Internet. Kublai became the majority shareholder of Tele Columbus through a public takeover offer, which was completed in 2021. Subsequently, Kublai took the company off the stock exchange through a delisting offer that had the support of the Tele Columbus Management Board.
Van’t Noordende added: “After completing the first phase of the transformation, the company is now in a very good position to further strengthen its leading role in the expansion of its fiber networks. We are delighted to have found a highly qualified industry expert in Markus Oswald, who will continue to pursue the existing growth strategy. He has an impressive track record – particularly in the realms of marketing and sales – in the business-to-consumer and housing industry sectors, both of which are particularly important to the company’s strategy. Our goal remains to enable substantial investments for the further build-out of fiber networks in Germany and, above all, to further expand the cooperation with the housing industry.”
