Wizards Of The Champions League

Ossy Hoppe said selling 51 percent of his Frankfurt-based Wizard Promotions to two members of one of Germany’s 10 richest families will enable the company to compete in "the champions league" of European promoters.

"We remain politically independent in the sense that we’re not locked into or docked alongside any of the international majors, so we can work with everyone on account of having no alliances," Hoppe said.

Within hours of the deal being inked at a March 5 meeting, Hoppe told Pollstar that selling a majority share of Wizard to Günter Reimann-Dübbers – part of the wealthy Reimann family – will enable it to go for more and bigger deals than before.

Hoppe continues as managing director while Reimann-Dübbers’ interests will be represented by his son Daniel, who already has his own Dap New Star GmbH local promoting company near the family seat in Heidelberg.

One of Daniel Reimann-Dübbers’ first appearances alongside Hoppe was at the German Live Entertainment Award (LEA) ceremony in Hamburg on February 15, where the Wizard chief introduced him as "my new partner."

A year earlier, Hoppe had picked up the LEA for Best Event for the U2 show he did at Munich’s Olympic Stadium, which drew 77,435 fans. The Reimanns’ financial clout may well have him tilting for even more big shows in the future.

According to Bild Zeitung, the Reimanns are one of Germany’s 10 richest families.

It owns the Benckiser GmbH group, which markets products ranging from washing powders like Calgon and scents and aftershaves such as Joop, Jil Sander and Davidoff.

Sixty percent of the shares are owned by Dr. Albert Reimann and Paula Reimann, with other family members – including Gunter and Daniel Reimann – holding the other 40 percent.

Albert Reimann-Dubbers represents the family at board meetings, and the company’s most recently published figures indicate it’s making euro 50 million a year profit on a euro 2.3 billion turnover. Across its various divisions, the group has about 9,500 employees.

German records estimated the Reimann family wealth at about 1 billion euros in 1996, but – six years later – that figure was revised to around euro 4.6 billion. Current estates have the figure nearer the euro 6 billion mark.