Sales 2023: € 4,000 billion

Overview

In September 2024, it was announced that Axel Springer SE, the long-established, powerful institution in the German media landscape, would undergo a restructuring by the second quarter of 2025. The group plans to split its businesses and become a family-run media company again. Specifically, the media division ("Bild," "Welt," Business Insider, “Politico”) will remain in the possession of Friede Springer and Mathias Döpfner (including the online comparison portal “Idealo”).

US financial investor KKR (New York) and CPP Investments (Toronto) will take majority control of the "Classifieds" business, the job and real estate portals (including StepStone and Aviv Group). Handelsblatt wrote on September 19, 2024: "Mathias Döpfner now controls one of the largest media groups in Europe together with Friede Springer - and can rule." In 2025, sales are expected to be around 2.2 billion euros.

General Information

Headquarters: 
Axel Springer Haus Berlin
Axel-Springer-Straße 65    
10888 Berlin
Germany
Telephone: 0049 30 2591-0
Internet: www.axelspringer.de

Axel Springer Haus Hamburg
Axel Springer 1st place
20350 Hamburg
Germany
Telephone: 0049 40 3472 4499

Branches of trade: Newspapers, magazines, printing companies, press distribution, television stations, radio, online services, TV production
Legal form: European Company (Societas Europaea/SE)
fiscal year: 01.01. – 31.12.
founding year: 1946

Basic economic data (amounts in million €)

	2023	2022	2021	2020	2019	2018
group sales	4.000	3.900	3.100	2.966	3.112	3.181
Profit (Loss)	—	750	439	206	414,5	528
employees (approximately)	18.000	18.000	16.800	16.100	16.120	16.350

Executives and Directors

Board:

• Dr. Mathias Döpfner, Chairman & CEO
• Mark Dean, CFO
• Claudius Senst, COO

Supervisory Board:

• Ralph Büchi, Chairman of the Supervisory Board
• Dr. hc Friede Springer, Deputy Chairwoman
• Andrej Babache
• Philipp Freise
• Oliver Heine
• Johannes P. Huth
• Franziska Kayser
• Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Reitzle
• Martin Varsavsky

History and Profile

The Axel Springer publishing house goes back to the Hammerich & Lesser printing house, founded in 1789 in Altona near Hamburg. In 1909, the businessman Hinrich Springer acquired the ailing company, which published the daily “Altonaer Nachrichten” from 1924 onwards. In 1941, the paper fell to the Nazi press empire. After the end of the war, the publisher’s son Axel Cäsar Springer received a license for “Hör zu”, which he expanded into the most widely read TV guide in the Federal Republic of Germany. Other projects followed: in 1948, Springer entered the newspaper market with the “HamburgerAbendblatt”, and in 1952 he founded “Bild”.–Newspaper, in 1953 he acquired the “Welt” from British occupation officers.

In Berlin, Springer bought into Ullstein AG at the end of the 1950s (“Berliner Morgenpost”, “BZ.Springer sold off the magazine publisher Kindler & Schiermeyer (“Eltern,” “Jasmin”) after only three years – under the influence of a public debate about Springer’s considerable influence on public opinion and about a concentration regulation in the German press. In the 1970s, the press entrepreneur entered regional newspapers and specialty magazines. Springer also wanted to invest in television early on, purchasing ZDF in 1965, but was unable to complete his plans for a publisher-owned TV company.

For years, Axel Springer shaped the company culture with his patriarchal style. The publishing house saw itself as a family that had to withstand serious attacks - such as those from the APO (extra-parliamentary opposition of the student movement) in the 1960s. At the time, Springer, who was committed to reunification with the GDR, was seen as a symbol of a repressive state.

After Axel Springer's death in 1985, a dispute broke out in management from which the company did not recover for a long time. The Baden publishing family Burda did not prove to be the support that was expected. In 1988, Burda sold his almost 25 percent share package in Springer, which he had only acquired in 1983, back to the Springer family, after it was initially supposed to go to the Munich film dealer Leo Kirch. He had previously acquired a 10 percent shareholding in the course of Springer's IPO in 1985, which he subsequently increased.

Kirch's fight for Springer became the central issue in the group for several years. If Springer's top managers weren't fighting among themselves, they were fighting with the major shareholder who was keen to expand. Under CEO Peter Tamm, the conflict escalated to the point of several court cases. After a period of calm under Tamm's successors Günter Wille and Günter Prinz, which was due to a "peace agreement" between the Springer family and Kirch in 1990, Jürgen Richter, Springer's CEO from 1994 to 1997, once again went into confrontation with Kirch. He took over the majority of the Sat.1 shareholder Aktuell Presse Fernsehen (APF) and increased the newspaper group's weight in the broadcaster controlled by Kirch: Springer ultimately had 40 percent of Sat.1's capital and four of eight supervisory board votes. After clever counterattacks by Kirch, Jürgen Richter had to vacate his post.

Since the mid-1980s, the publishing management has been bringing out new offshoots of "Bild", from "Bild der Frau" to "Sport-Bild", and investing abroad. In the television business, the publishing house initially invested in Sat.1 and the German sports television station DSF (since 2010 Sport1) in Kirch's shadow, as well as in the sports rights agency ISPR.

In 1996, Springer consolidated its TV business: the loss-making DSF stake was sold and the Sat.1 stake increased. In 1998, stakes in production companies were added: the publisher wanted to supply TV content to Sat.1, where Springer was now responsible for the journalistic part but had handed over operational management to Kirch. The partners finally reached an agreement in 2000: Springer gave up its special position at Sat.1 and received 11.5 percent of the new ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG broadcasting family in return - coupled with the right to sell this share package to Kirch for 767 million euros by February 2002 at the latest.

Which is what Mathias Döpfner, Chairman of the Springer Board since 2002, did. And which resulted in the insolvency of the Kirch Group. Not only was the publishing house able to free itself from the problems with Leo Kirch, but the balance sheet, which had shown enormous losses in 2001, also improved. Döpfner invested in foreign publications, primarily in Eastern Europe, where Springer founded the tabloid newspaper "Fakt" in Poland and a licensed edition of "Forbes" in Russia. The attempted takeover of the London newspaper group around the "Daily Telegraph" failed in 2004, however, and further investments were made in electronic media. Döpfner suffered another defeat in early 2006, when the Federal Cartel Office prohibited Springer from taking over the majority of the Munich TV group ProSiebenSat.1 (takeover from major shareholder Haim Saban at a price of 2.45 billion euros). A decision accompanied by a public debate about the opinion-forming power of the Springer Group.

A further turning point came in 2013 with the sale of a large portion of regional newspapers and magazines to the Funke Media Group (including the "Berliner Morgenpost" ("MoPo"), "Hörzu", "Hamburger Abendblatt", "Bild der Frau", "Frau von Heute", "TV Digital") for 920 million euros. Observers initially viewed this as evidence that the Springer Group and Döpfner had completely lost interest in journalism. At the end of 2013, however, the takeover of the news channel N24 was announced, which was integrated into the "Welt" Group (the name was then changed to WELT TV in 2018). In September 2015, Axel Springer SE acquired around 88 percent of BUSINESS INSIDER (later 97 percent), a website with business and financial news. And from April 2016, a new, modern publishing building was built next to the Axel Springer Building at the corner of Zimmerstrasse (since 2008 Rudi Dutschke Strasse) and Axel Springer Strasse.

On 6 April 2020 the delisting: The New York investment company KKR had acquired around 45 percent of Springer shares. Springer was delisted, ending a 35-year era as a listed company. In August 2021, KKR facilitated the purchase of the US daily newspaper "Politico" for over one billion US dollars.  

management

Since the beginning of 2002 Mathias Döpfner at the head of the board. Born in Bonn in 1963 and with a doctorate in musicology, he became editor of the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" in 1982. In 1992 he moved to Gruner + Jahr as an assistant to the board before heading the editorial departments of the "Wochenpost" (a GDR weekly newspaper founded in 1953 and closed in 1996), the "Hamburger Morgenpost" and the "Welt". At Springer he replaced August Fischer, who had failed with his attempts to expand abroad and into electronic media. Despite setbacks, Döpfner is far more successful as a top manager than in his roles as editor-in-chief: after a very brief foray into the postal business left the group with a deficit of 288.4 million euros in 2007, the 2008 financial year saw the company post its highest annual profit since its foundation.

Döpfner does not shy away from controversy. Given the controversial past of the Springer publishing house, he repeatedly sought dialogue with prominent critics such as Günter Grass, who has boycotted Springer publications for 30 years. Here, Döpfner showed himself willing to undertake a "self-critical revision" of the publisher's role in 1968, provided that the opponents at the time would also discuss "the aberrations of the 1968 movement".

However, he was not always able to reach the activists he addressed at the time. When it became clear that the West Berlin policeman who had shot student Benno Ohnesorg in 1967 was a Stasi agent, Döpfner and "Welt" editor-in-chief Thomas Schmid demanded apologies for the "Expropriate Springer" demands of the 1960s. And in July 2009, the publisher announced that it would reschedule the "Springer Tribunal," which the company's opponents had planned in 1968. However, by August, the event had already been canceled ("68ers refuse dialogue„), the “Springer Tribunal 2009″ had failed. In the end, however, the attempts to revive the debate led to around 5,900 press sources from the 1960s now available online thanks to Springer (medienarchiv68.de).

Opinions were particularly divided over Döpfner's plans for a cross-media expansion into television in 2005/2006. Critics feared that diversity of opinion would be endangered. In connection with the takeover of ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG by the foreign financial investors Permira and KKR (which had previously been prohibited for Springer), voices were raised calling for these TV stations to remain in German hands. Since then, the question of the opinion-forming power of private media groups in times of rapid convergence has influenced the corporate strategy of the Berlin publishing house and led to increased international expansion.

Döpfner also often comments on the increasingly pressing questions for press publishers about the future of their revenues in the digital era. Springer's efforts to create paid journalistic content on the Internet are being closely watched by competitors. His statement on American television that every publisher should “sit down once a day and pray to thank” Apple CEO Steve Jobs. In November 2010, he explained his statement in the Handelsblatt: "The fact that there was perhaps a touch of irony in this was not received in Germany. In the same broadcast, however, I added: After we have prayed, we should negotiate with Steve Jobs. Because the prices and the end customer control are not acceptable. That was unmistakable. It would have been so nice if the critics of my first sentence had been patient for a few more minutes for the following sentences."

In 2011, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that Döpfner "apparently receives higher remuneration than the best-paid CEO of a DAX company". In the same year, Döpfner proved to be an eloquent representative of the major German newspaper publishers, who sued against the ARD's "Tagesschau" app. Döpfner wrote in the Süddeutsche Zeitung at the time: "The lawsuit is a warning call for an entire industry. All private newspaper and magazine publishers, including private television providers, are concerned that in the course of digitization, the business basis for quality journalism and thus diversity of opinion in Germany will be lost due to an abuse of the dominant, market-distorting role of the public broadcasters...". On Mathias Döpfner's tenth anniversary as CEO in 2012, the taz praised how the "smart big-money earner and industry optimist ... sings the future to the timid old trade of newspaper makers with cheerful persistence".

Döpfner has been a member of the Board of Directors of Warner Music, part of Access Industries (32nd place in our ranking) since May 2014, and a member of the Board of Directors of Netflix (13th place) since September 2018. According to the business magazine Bilanz, Döpfner's assets amounted to 150 million euros in 2016. In addition, he received a share donation from Friede Springer in 2020 worth around one billion euros.

Business segments

Axel Springer SE, a leading European and transatlantic media company with over 200 brands. As announced in September 2024, Springer will once again be a "family-run media company" from Q2 2025. It will consist of the following brands: "Bild", "WELT", Business Insider, “Politico” (plus the online comparison portal Idealo), and separates from the job and real estate portals (StepStone and Aviv Group).

"Bild": the group's daily flagship - no longer based in Hamburg since March 2008, but with the most important editorial offices in Berlin (Axel Springer high-rise). The first edition of "Bild" appeared on June 24, 1952, cost 10 pfennigs and had four pages. Circulation: 455,000. Today it is the German daily newspaper with the highest circulation, and is therefore also popular with politicians. In 2024, the paid circulation was around 973,000 copies. A circulation that is, on the one hand, declining sharply (in 1998 it was still around 4.4 million copies), and on the other hand, in 2023, digital sales were able to offset the print loss for the first time. In 2022, there were around 600,000 digital subscribers; the paid digital offering "Bild plus" is the largest in Europe and the tenth largest in the world. And "Bild.de" is Germany's most visited news site. In the future, the printed Bild newspaper will be discontinued completely and will only be published digitally. In addition, Springer-Verlag publishes numerous other publications under similar names, e.g. "Bild am Sonntag", "Auto Bild", "Sport Bild", "Computer Bild". The channel "Bild TV" was discontinued in 2023 after only two years.

"WELT": a national, conservatively oriented daily newspaper. First published on April 2, 1946, in Hamburg, in the British occupation zone. In 1953, "WELT" was acquired by Springer. "WELT" also suffered a significant decline in circulation, which was around 138,000 in 2013. By 2023, it had fallen to just 36,000. At the end of 2013, Springer acquired the news channel N24, which was integrated into the "WELT" group (the name was changed to WELT TV in 2018). Until the nationwide launch of the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung" in 2001, "Bild am Sonntag" and "WELT am Sonntag" were unrivaled Sunday newspapers, which also established Springer's special position in the German press market.

The Berlin tabloid newspaper “BZ”, founded in 1877, also belongs to the Springer Group and is currently experiencing a large loss in circulation. From around 284,000 in 1998, it went downhill to 74,000 copies by 2023. “BZ”: not to be confused with the “Berliner Zeitung” and the “BZ am Abend”, now the “Berliner Kurier” (both originally from East Berlin, published by the Berliner Verlag owned by Silke and Holger Friedrich).

Insider Inc. (New York): In September 2015, Axel Springer SE bought around 88 percent of Business Insider Inc. (later 97 percent) for 306 million euros, a website with business and financial news founded in 2007. The company was renamed Insider Inc. in December 2017, when it also began to focus on topics such as lifestyle and general interest planned. “International Editions” are published for the German, Dutch, Spanish, Polish, Indian and Japanese markets.

"Politico": US daily newspaper founded in Washington, DC in 2007 (circulation: around 40,000 copies), with a European edition (published weekly) since 2015. "The focus is on in-depth political background research, thus providing a counterbalance to the usual online reporting (...) The aim was to "inform the powerful," and it worked: The in-house newsletter "Playbook" has a reputation as a must-read for members of parliament." (Der Spiegel) Springer acquired the company in 2021.

Also, for example: Bonial (digital brochure portal), Dyn Media (sports streaming, Cologne), eMarketer (market research), the joint venture Ringier Axel Springer Poland.

Current developments

The core of Springer's current development is, of course, the division of Germany's largest publishing house, which was announced in September 2024. The split of the company into a "family-run media company" ("Bild" Group, "Welt" Group, Business Insider, "Politico", Idealo etc.) and the classifieds business (The Stepstone Group, AVIV, finanzen.net, Awin). Here, KKR will take majority control. However, Döpfner and Friede Springer are to retain a minority stake in the classifieds division. The future media company will then be 98 percent owned by Mathias Döpfner, who has signed a new five-year contract as CEO, and Friede Springer. The remaining shares will be retained by Axel Sven Springer, a grandson of the company's founder Axel Springer.

Handelsblatt commented on the deal: "Döpfner is the biggest winner," saying he has "significantly expanded his influence as one of Europe's most important media managers." However, problems could arise from the fact that there will be hardly any cross-subsidies between the laborious content business, between print media, which is suffering from declining circulation in the 21st century, and the lucrative classifieds business, which has been able to compensate for the declines in print since around 2010. In the first half of 2023, digital revenues accounted for 85.5 percent of the group's revenue. Politico is seeing growth in the media sector. Otherwise, the recruiting market, including StepStone, is growing in particular.