Carl Bertelsmann founded his company as a publisher of hymn books in 1835. It later grew to include book clubs and today is in a number of diverse areas including magazines, television, music and logistics.
A
Financial Times
article
said for that Bertelsmann’s descendants who now control the company, the Mohn family, Bertelsmann “is in effect a wealth fund; focusing its activities would mean putting all of their eggs in one basket.”
The family fired its former CEO, Thomas Middelhoff, who wanted to list the company on the stock market. Under Middelhoff’s successor, Thomas Rabe, the company sold €1.4 billion in shares in its broadcasting subsidiary RTL Group, a move that “met Mr. Rabe’s wish for capital with the Mohns’ focus on control,” the
FT
article said.
“I spent a minimum of 15 months when I became CEO to build consensus with all the constituencies,” Rabe told the
FT.
Rabe said he has a close relationship with Christoph Mohn, who succeeded his mother, Lis, as chairman of Bertelsmann’s supervisory board.
Rabe said the company is now in the process of closing “large parts of” its German book club and liquidated the Chinese book club in 2008. He told the
FT
that he had the family’s support for those moves, though he had been warned that the family would oppose them.
The
FT
article said company revenues rose less than 2%, to €16.4 billion, last year. Rabe told the
FT
that the target is about €20 billion by 2018, with most of the growth to come through acquisitions.
The
FT
report noted that last year Rabe was reported to have been a candidate for the CEO post at Vivendi. “Bertelsmann said ‘he [wasn’t] available for any other position,’ but the story was an embarrassment,” the article said. (Source:
Financial Times,
April 28, 2014.)
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