Euro Disney chief executive lives his passion as company begins a slow but gradual recovery Karl Holz admits to catching the Disney bug in a cinema on a US Air Force base in Ramstein, Germany, when he was seven. "I lived in a small village and my family had a radio and no television . . . Bambi was the first film I saw, and the memory of the excitement I felt will be with me for ever," Mr Holz, 55, the chairman and chief executive of Euro Disney, says. His passion for Disney was confirmed when he moved to the US in 1960, where he watched The Wonderful World of Disney each Sunday at 7pm. The television show, presented by Walt Disney, in part to publicise Disneyland, familiarised Mr Holz with the world he hoped to join one day. However, when he became the head of Euro Disney in May last year, he appreciated that Disney was more than fairy castles and cuddly characters. "It is no secret that we have faced challenges in the past year," he says, overlooking Main Street USA and Cinderella's Castle in suburban Paris, "but we now have momentum and things are moving in the right direction". Mr Holz joined Disney in 1996 and held several positions at the group's US theme parks and cruise line operations. He faced the task of leading Euro Disney through restructuring, as the park in Marne-la-Vallée fell deeper into debt. The group is 39.8 per cent owned by the Walt Disney Company and 10 per cent owned by the Saudi businessman Prince Alwaleed. Euro Disney has restructured its finances twice since being launched in the early 1990s, and it completed a €253.3 million capital increase in February last year to avert insolvency. Regarding future restructuring, Mr Holz says that you can "never say never", but he believes that the company is making a gradual recovery.The shy type He is trying to figure out why a little-known Swiss firm announced this month that it would make a bid for Disneyland Paris, although a formal bid did not materialise. Ulf Werner, the chief executive of Center-Tainment, held a press conference in Paris to say that the Frankfurt-listed company could launch a bid of €0.11 a share for Disneyland Paris and garner a 50.01 per cent stake in the theme park. "It has been an interesting time," Mr Holz says. Although he is an imposing figure, he is the quiet, corporate type and, unlike André Lacroix, his predecessor, he has shied away from media attention. He did not go through the interview process for his present job; insiders say that he was the obvious choice. He has an American, corporate approach, and he admits to getting on with the job and not being outspoken. Mr Holz has negotiated with unions to help to control operating costs after labour costs rose 7 per cent, twice as fast as revenue. He is positive about what he has achieved and is convinced that things are looking up. "It's not what Karl did. It's what the team did - Minnie, Mickey and all the cast members," he says with a laugh, referring to Euro Disney's 12,300 full-time workers. The latest results from the group indicated that improved attendance helped to trim net losses for the year ending September 30 to €73.1 million (£49 million) from a com- parable loss of €92 million last year. Attendance rose to 12.8 million from 12.3 million a year earlier. Much of the increase was in the second half, after the Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast interactive ride was launched, one of three new attractions that cost an estimated total of €240 million. Mr Holz says that 20 per cent of his business comes from Britain, 40 per cent from France, 8 per cent from Spain and between 6 per cent and 7 per cent from Germany. Increasingly, visitors are coming from Russia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. "You can't treat Germany as if it was the UK - the marketing strategies have to be totally different," Mr Holz says. Apparently, Germans are thrill-seekers who are attracted to the rollercoasters and are focused on value for money, whereas Britons are attracted by the Disney theme. Despite lingering concern by some observers over whether Paris was the right site for a Disney theme park in Europe because of its inclement winters, Mr Holz is steadfast. "Paris is the ideal spot for Disneyland Resort Paris - ideally placed for the majority of Europe and with good connections from North Africa and Eastern Europe," he says. He notes that 43,000 direct and indirect jobs have been created in the parks, hotels, shops, restaurants and the Eurostar terminal. A sleepy Parisian suburb has become a bustling fantasy world.