Thomas Haeberle is to step down from the management board of ambitious German mini-conglomerate F.A.M.E. Film & Music Entertainment where he was director of film production.

The move is reminiscent of Bernd Eichinger's recent decision at Constantin to quit the board and concentrate on production. Haeberle's board responsibilities are being taken over until further notice by Michael Bischoff, director for film licensing.

The move, however, comes as the German Stock Exchange put F.A.M.E. on a blacklist of companies which had failed to present their financial statements in time, and suggested that the firm may be subject to financial penalties.

F.A.M.E. recently warned that its earnings for 2000 would probably be only $275,000-$370m (DM600,000-800,000), instead of the forecast $1.2m (DM 2.6m), and blamed "two film projects that failed to generate the planned profit contribution". International distribution of the horror thriller 7 Days To Live brought in a third of the revenue originally budgeted by sales agent Amberlon Pictures.

The company has now expanded its central project controlling and bookkeeping departments "in order to prevent the recurrence of such events and of budgetary overshoots in film production".