Media Mogul Gives $1.2 Billion to Ex-Journalist at Axel Springer
Media Mogul Gives $1.2 Billion to Ex-Journalist at Axel Springer
(Bloomberg) -- Friede Springer has transferred about $1.5 billion of shares in Germany’s Axel Springer SE to Chief Executive Officer Mathias Doepfner, a move that effectively makes him heir to the sprawling media group.
Springer, 78, gifted Doepfner 15% of the company’s share capital and sold him another 4.1%, Springer said in a statement Thursday. The 57-year-old former journalist, who she installed as CEO in 2002 amid a battle with her family over control of the business, now controls 44% of the voting rights and will thus become the key decision maker.
“I am very happy and grateful to have found my successor in Mathias,” according to the statement. “Together with our new partner KKR, we will ensure that Axel Springer remains active and relevant as an independent media business and home of journalism.”
Friede -- who was worth $4.7 billion before her share transfer -- is giving up about half of her shareholding in Axel Springer, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. She’s the fifth wife of Axel Springer, also a former journalist, who founded his eponymous publishing house in 1946. Following Axel’s death about four decades later, Springer assumed control of the media empire and gradually increased her stake by acquiring shares from minority shareholders including her family.
Friede installed Doepfner as CEO after Axel Springer’s grandchildren lost a court battle with her -- their step-grandmother -- to gain more control over their family’s business. The third-generation of the Springer dynasty were at odds over how stakes in the publisher were distributed after the founder’s death in 1985 and wanted a larger share.
It isn’t the first time Springer has transferred shares to Doepfner. In 2012, he received shares in Axel Springer worth about $90 million at the time and acquired about 2% of the company from her at a discount price six years earlier. Doepfner will now control 44% of the voting rights and effectively be Friede’s heir, making him the key decision maker at the group.
Doepfner, who joined Die Welt in 1998 before becoming chairman of Axel Springer’s management board in 2002, acquired the shares from Springer at 62.42 euros per share, the same price at KKR’s take-private offer, according to an Axel Springer spokesman.
Axel Springer is currently valued at 6.8 billion euros ($7.9 billion), after private equity firm KKR & Co Inc. began a process to buy out minority shareholders last year.
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.