The Nürburgring should fall into Russian hands. A consortium of oligarchs and super-rich has already secured two-thirds of the shares and takes command of the ring. Thus, from all possible perspectives for the ring is one of the worst of reality. The hope that such investors will take any account of the existing conditions, is low. Stunned you have to watch as a handful of people without scruples make the time-honored Nürburgring to the ball of the super rich. A comment by Dieter Weidenbrück
After many years of mistakes and bungling attempts to create a future perspective for the Nürburgring, one could have expected that peace would eventually set in. The buyer Capricorn as a local auto supplier with motorsport relations should do everything. But far from it: the sale threatened to become a financial fiasco. And right now Robertino Wild is pulling his trump card. Promoted as motorsports-minded visionary, Malu Dreyer's preferred candidate, and especially non-grasshopper, non-sheikh and non-oligarch, the game conjures a Russian consortium of well-known oligarchs and super-rich out of their hats, putting them all on the cross. That's where the language really comes to you.
One is stunned by the behavior of the state government. She bears the responsibility for the conditions at the Nürburgring, even if today she appears as if the disaster had someday fallen from the sky. It is the current Prime Minister Dreyer, who is responsible for the unspeakable sales process in which the desired candidate Capricorn was made in a quite transparent manner to the buyer. Again and again it was emphasized that there would be no rich people as buyers who could turn the Nürburgring into a private playground. No sheiks, no oligarchs. The greatest possible scenario of fear for motorsport and the region: completely out of the question, that would be prevented. But now they are there, Mrs. Dreyer, the super-rich, and all that the state government has come up with so far is approval and Roger Lewentz's sentence that one hopes that there will be no grasshopper tendencies. How implausible can politicians ever become?
One is still stunned when one looks at the work of the insolvency administrators. Trustee Jens Lieser seems to be holding the events on the ring for his private affair, where he can switch and act at will without consulting the creditors' committee. Even the transactions on the day of the sale leave many questions unanswered. If Capricorn's financing was transactional at the time, how is it that it no longer exists? How can it be that the financing commitment of Deutsche Bank has not existed for months, and Lieser does not want to know about it? And then, after the second purchase price has failed, contracts are readjusted, again without the creditors' committee. To top it all off, the press say Lieser played a very active role in the entry of the Russian investor. Lieser as well as Professor Dr. Thomas Schmidt did not tire of portraying the risk of being taken over by a super-rich as completely overdone and unrealistic. And now Lieser himself has pulled the strings? How unscrupulous must someone be who initially appeared as the good guy who wanted to do only good for the region and motorsport?
The people in the region and motorsport are also stunned. Now it has happened, the Nürburgring, on which people in the Eifel are so proud, is sold in Russian hands. And everybody is watching. Many have been afraid of this now uncontrollable situation, now it is there. Now it is time to quickly overcome the shock and mobilize the reserves to write letters to local and national politicians, even to the European Commission. The regional politicians with the exception of Mayor Schüssler must not take off again. Do you really hope that these investors are interested in the interests of the region? That something like RCN or VLN would have a place?
Stunned are many, because it could even come so far. The fears are not directed against investors because of their nationality. Rather, it's about the attitude that you can expect from someone who seems to have been on the Nürburgring just once in his life. To people who, like Abramovich, spend around one billion euros on one of several yachts, with their own submarine and missile defense system, and then mop around with 24 people. Such owners do not make economic calculations. You do not need a region, no motorsport. What matters is exclusivity, nothing else. And what would be more exclusive than having your private Nürburgring?
I already hear those who say that is completely covered. You should let them do it first. It would not be that bad.
These are the same people who said at the beginning of the buying process that a sheikh or oligarch would never come. And now? Who wants to prevent things if they do not run as the Eifelaner imagines?
I hope that now finally understood, what the clock has beaten. The sale is not completed yet. The state government can still have decisive influence. No one wants to hear the excuses that everything is in the hands of Lieser and Schmidt, and they do not agree with the facts. As principal creditor, one has a decisive influence over the creditors' meeting and creditor committee up to the exchange of the two gentlemen. If the state government does not feel capable of doing so, it should resign and let people do it.
Everyone can show their displeasure with the development, and he should do that now.
Or wait and see if everything is "going according to plan". And then tell the children at some point that one could have guessed nothing, if they ask why one has ever admitted that the Nürburgring, the automobile cultural heritage par excellence, the economic foundation of the region, just so the ball could be super rich.
Update:
http://www.allgemeine-zeitung.de/topthema/mainz-erdbeben-in-der-landesregierung-ahnen-ersetzt-kuehl-schweitzer-und-hartloff-raus_14747494.htm