An era has come to an end at Germany's Helkon Media with the decision by Martin Heldmann, co-founder, CEO and major shareholder, to step down from heading the company as well as managing several of its subsidiaries.

Helkon's advisory board and board of directors expressed their regret at Heldmann's move but said that "they respect his decision after the successful efforts in restructuring the company during the last six months and enabling a new lineup in the companies' management".

Mark Ramakers and Rudolf-Markus Reischl will assume Heldmann's duties in the period before a successor is found. Heldmann has indicated, though, that he will continue to act as an advisor to Helkon in the future.

Helkon had been robbed of its other co-founder when Werner Koenig was tragically killed in a skiing accident while scouting for locations in Switzerland for Christian Duguay's action film The Extremists in November 2000.