At a closed-door meeting, Bertelsmann head Thomas Rabe told 500 of the company’s executives that the group does not have “all the skills required” to profit from the shift to digital media and called the company’s position in the U.S. “insufficient,”
the
Financial Times
reported.
Rabe said the group suffers from “low growth and low growth potential,” the article said.
Bertelsmann, which is controlled by the Mohn family, “has gone through years of torpor” after buying back one-quarter of the group from an outside investor in 2006, the article said. That move escalated Bertelsmann’s debt and precluded an IPO.
According to the report, Rabe said that Bertelsmann must focus on growing its business to create value for its investors and to attract needed talent. He said he plans to make the company expand faster and become more digital and more international.
This summer, the company changed its legal structure. The Mohn family are now general partners with control of the executive board; they have the option to sell stock without diluting family control, the report noted. (Source:
Financial Times,
Sept. 12, 2012.)
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