2024-09-20 06:33:31
The Axel Springer publishing house is splitting up. The media brands are to be separated from the job and real estate portals.
The Axel Springer Group is planning to split up its businesses. The media business (“Bild”, “Welt”, “Politico”) of the publishing house, founded in 1946, will remain under the full control of Springer boss and major shareholder Mathias Döpfner and the Springer family, as the company announced on Thursday. The majority of the far more profitable business with classified ads such as job portals (Stepstone) and real estate (Aviv) will then be held by the US financial investor KKR and the Canadian pension fund CPP Investments.
Döpfner and the publisher’s widow Friede Springer remain invested in this division with an undisclosed minority share. It was a clear plan “that Axel Springer would one day be a family business again,” said 82-year-old Friede Springer. “The fact that this idea is now becoming a reality fills me with great joy.”
The deal is expected to be finalized in the coming months and, if the antitrust authorities give the green light, the entire transaction will be completed in the spring quarter of 2025. Axel Springer will be debt-free in the future, it was said.
KKR invested in Springer in 2019 and delisted the company in 2020 after 35 years. Springer’s valuation was 6.8 billion euros five years ago and is now twice as high at around 13.5 billion euros, as insiders recently explained.
The lion’s share, around ten billion euros, comes from the job and real estate portal business. “After a long and successful partnership, this natural next step for the Axel Springer Group is a great result for all stakeholders involved,” said investment legend Henry Kravis, co-founder of KKR.