Uniper Founding CEO Klaus Schafer Dies

Uniper's founding CEO Klaus Schafer has died in his home town near Munich, Germany, August 26 after a long illness, the German company said the following day. He was just 53. He had been the company's CEO from the time Uniper was founded until mid-2019, although cancer meant he had had to stop work in August 2018.

He – and the rest of Uniper's senior management team – resigned last summer over disagreements with Finnish Fortum, which wanted to acquire a majority stake.

Uniper was split off from E.ON January 1, 2016 and went public the following September. In the following years, Uniper's share price tripled as Schafer set the strategic course for the future. He was highly regarded internally and externally for his competence, commitment, openness and honesty, Uniper said.  

His successor Andreas Schierenbeck, who took up the position in June last year, said the company mourned the loss of the "long-time designer of our successful company and permanent role model for many companions and employees. Our thoughts go with his family, to whom we all extend our condolences." He added that Schafer's attitude and leadership style were "exemplary and formative for all of us. Klaus Schafer has thus created a lasting legacy."

As well as the strategy that led to the company's financial growth, Schafer also set the Uniper on its path to a CO₂ -free energy future, Uniper said. Supervisory board chairman Klaus-Dieter Maubach said: "He has thus created an excellent basis on which his successors can continue on this path today. Today is a sad day – but Klaus Schafer's performance as a manager and his role model function will be retained. Uniper has always been an affair of the heart for Klaus Schafer: We are forever grateful to him. I extend my deepest sympathy to his family, also on behalf of the entire supervisory board. "

Schafer started his career as a mergers and acquisitions analyst at Morgan Stanley in London. After senior roles in the utility Viag which then became part of E.ON, and at Thuga, he returned to E.ON with positions in Munich, Milan and as CEO of E.ON Ruhrgas (2010–2013), becoming its CFO.

In 2016 he became CEO of the newly founded Uniper, which retained responsibility for the company's fossil fuel generation assets, gas production and its long-term gas contracts. Among these were some with Russian gas exporter Gazprom that went to arbitration as the oil indexed price was above the gas market price. 

Despite these tense moments, he and his team at Uniper continued to support Gazprom's European gas export policy, defending it in August 2018 against US interference in Nord Stream 2. Uniper is one of the five companies that lent Gazprom half of the cost of the line, which remains incomplete.