Sales 2024: €3.6 trillion

Overview

A family-owned business based in Stuttgart, the Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group (also known as the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group) owns one of Germany's largest publishing portfolios. The global holding company (with North America as by far its most important market) is active in the information, education, and entertainment sectors, and in "seven globally oriented, dynamic business units of the group": Springer Nature; Macmillan Publishers and Holtzbrinck Book Publishers; Macmillan Learning; Holtzbrinck Digital; Digital Science; DIE ZEIT Group; and Funds & Investments.

General Information

Headquarters
Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH & Co. KG
Gänsheidestraße 26
70184 Stuttgart
Germany
Telephone: 0049 711 2150-0
website: www.holtzbrinck.com 

Branches of trade: Educational and general publishers, newspapers, internet services
Legal form: GmbH & Co. KG
Financial year: 01.01. – 31.12.
Founding year: German publishing expedition (1936), founding year of the Holtzbrinck Holding (1971)

Basic economic data

	2024	2023	2022
Sales (in million €)	3.600	3.600	3.600
Employees	5.324	5.324	5.324

Executives and Directors

Executives and Directors

• Dr. Stefan von Holtzbrinck, Chairman of the Management Board
• Björn Waldow, Commercial Managing Director
• Filmon Zerai, Managing Director Operations
• Diana Baumhauer, SVP HR
• Claus-Peter Gosselke, SVP Tax & Accounting
• Dr. Sabine Knauer, SVP Legal
• Rolf Landkammer, SVP Group Finance
• Martin Strempel, SVP Group Controlling
• Cathrin Vischer, SVP HR

Supervisory Board:

• Bernd Hirsch, Chairman
• Dr. Hagen Duenbostel
• Dr. Florian Heinemann
• Julia Jäkel
• Christiane Schoeller 
  

History

Company founder Georg von Holtzbrinck in the Third Reich

After ten years of research, journalist Thomas Garke-Rothbart published a scientific study in 2008 (published by KG Saur-Verlag) entitled "... vital for our company ..." about the company's roots and its founder and namesake, Georg von Holtzbrinck, during the Third Reich. Officially, the publishing house's history had always begun in 1948; in fact, it began much earlier. Garke-Rothbart began his research project after the US magazine "Vanity Fair" printed Georg von Holtzbrinck's Nazi party card and published a detailed account of his "dark past" in 1998. When Garke-Rothbart, to the publisher's family's surprise, discovered private documents in a public archive, the family agreed to support him. They made files available to him, facilitated contact with contemporary witnesses and other archives, and covered part of the research costs.

Historian Wolfgang Benz wrote in Holtzbrinck's own Tagesspiegel that the study was characterized by "meticulous research." He praised the author's avoidance of moral accusations. It was "not an elegant presentation," but it was "highly welcome and insightful," Benz judged. Georg von Holtzbrinck was "an important player" in the history of the book trade and publishing in the Third Reich; although a member of the Nazi Party, he did not appear as a convinced Nazi. Benz concluded: "The story of the entrepreneur Georg von Holtzbrinck in the Third Reich is as unspectacular as it is depressing. He was not a fanatical ideologue, not a vicious anti-Semite, not a wild militarist; he simply adapted. For the sake of business success. If he perhaps disagreed with the official line at one point, he didn't let anyone notice. But that is what made the Nazi regime's success possible—the adaptability, the opportunism, the silence of so many." After the war, he lamented the three lost years because of his denazification process, which classified him as a fellow traveler.

"To our great regret," the children Monika Schoeller von Holtzbrinck, Dieter, and Stefan von Holtzbrinck said in a statement, "the Nazi regime has penetrated all areas of our father's life and work, and thus also his publishing activities." Garke-Rothbart's book, they continued, "makes known a previously largely unknown part of German book trade history during the Nazi era. In the interest of the desired, unreserved clarification, all materials in the possession of the family and the company were made available, and academic work was supported. In total, nearly thirty archives between Washington and Moscow were opened up, and all documents discovered are available for further research."

Company history

The book salesman Georg von Holtzbrinck (1909-1983), of Westphalian nobility, founded the German Publishing Expedition (Devex) with his friend Wilhelm Schlösser in 1936. The distribution company was the nucleus of a rapidly expanding media company. Holtzbrinck owed this in part to his good relations with the Nazi Party, Vanity Fair wrote in 1998. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Süddeutsche Zeitung also conducted research on this topic: Georg von Holtzbrinck had been a Nazi Party member since 1935, and his uncle Erich von Holtzbrinck had connections to Hitler's private office. Devex also distributed German Social Democratic Party magazines such as "Beauty of Work" and "Joy and Work." Holtzbrinck had profited from the Nazi regime.

In 1943, he took over the Wiesbaden-based publishing house "Deutsche Volksbücher," which the Allies licensed in 1946. In 1948, Holtzbrinck founded the "Stuttgarter Hausbücherei" distribution system (where books were sold exclusively to members); later, the "Deutscher Bücherbund" (German Book Association) (1959), the "Deutsche Hausbücherei" (German House Library) (1960), and the "Deutscher Buchklub" (German Book Club) (1966). For four decades, book clubs remained the company's core business, but Holtzbrinck increasingly acted as a publisher, acquiring the S. Fischer Verlag and stakes in Kindler and Rowohlt from the 1960s onward (in 1984, the remaining 33 percent of Rowohlt Verlag was acquired). The company acquired stakes in the Saarbrücker Zeitung and, in 1971, in the Handelsblatt (Düsseldorf, founded in 1946).

Georg von Holtzbrinck had four children: Monika Schoeller (1939-2019); Dieter, born in 1941; Karin (1943-2006); and Stefan von Holtzbrinck, half-brother of the other three, born in 1963. When Georg von Holtzbrinck died in 1983, Dieter had already been managing director of Handelsblatt for three years. Dieter von Holtzbrinck radically restructured the company, particularly through expansion into English-speaking countries. In 1986, he bought the US book publisher Henry Holt and the journal Scientific American; in 1994, the prestigious New York bookstore Farrar, Straus & Giroux; and in 1995, for 600 million DM, he acquired a 70.8 percent stake in the British publisher Macmillan (which also owns St. Martin's Press and the journal Nature). In addition, Holtzbrinck acquired a majority stake in the Basel research institute Prognos AG in 1989.

At the same time, Dieter von Holtzbrinck also decided to invest in electronic media. In 1983, Holtzbrinck became a founding shareholder of Sat.1, holding a 15 percent stake in 1986. At the end of 1996, the stake was sold to Munich film dealer Leo Kirch for nearly 200 million DM. To advance business television, Holtzbrinck initially acquired a 25 percent stake in the news channel n-tv, then increased to 47 percent. In 2002, however, Holtzbrinck sold the station's shares to Bertelsmann – along with stakes in twelve radio stations.

Holtzbrinck also purchased the newspapers "Main-Post" and "Fränkisches Volksblatt" (1991), the Berlin "Tagesspiegel" (1992), "Trierischer Volksfreund" (1993), and in 1996 the weekly newspaper "Die Zeit" for 140 million DM from sole shareholder Gerd Bucerius. In 1992, the Stuttgart-based Gustav Fischer Verlag was acquired, which in 1999 merged with Urban & Schwarzenberg, which had also been part of Holtzbrinck since 1998, to form Urban & Fischer, the second-largest medical publisher in the German-speaking world. On January 1, 1999, Holtzbrinck merged five of its own publishing houses with seven publishing houses of the Catholic Weltbild Group (Augsburg), a publishing group that has since operated under the name Droemer Knaur. These acquisitions were accompanied by an internal restructuring: In 1989, Holtzbrinck sold the "Deutscher Bücherbund," once the heart of the company, to Kirch for 250 million DM. Holtzbrinck also divested itself of the music company Intercord, which went to EMI. Finally, the printing companies Claussen & Bosse and Franz Spiegel Buch were also sold.

In 2002, Holtzbrinck acquired the ailing Berliner Verlag, which also owned the "Berliner Zeitung," from Gruner + Jahr. The deal, which was conducted subject to antitrust concerns, turned into a disaster for Holtzbrinck, as described in detail here. The Federal Cartel Office prohibited the transaction, citing Holtzbrinck's dominant market position in Berlin subscription newspapers, which would arise if the "Tagesspiegel" and "Berliner Zeitung" were published jointly by a single company. In 2003, Holtzbrinck applied to then-Minister of Economics Wolfgang Clement (SPD) for ministerial approval to circumvent the antitrust authority's veto and proposed a foundation model for the editorial staff of the "Tagesspiegel." However, Clement could only grant permission if "overall economic benefits" or "an overriding public interest" outweighed concerns about concentration. On May 13, 2003, Clement therefore issued an interim decision instructing Holtzbrinck to search for buyers for the "Tagesspiegel" for six weeks. If no buyers were found, he would grant ministerial approval. However, the Bauer and Ippen publishing groups expressed interest, and in September 2003, Holtzbrinck sold the "Tagesspiegel" to Pierre Gerckens at a preferential price (€10 million was mentioned, but the group did not comment on this). Although the way then seemed clear for the takeover of the "Berliner Zeitung," the Federal Cartel Office prohibited this a second time in 2004, arguing that the "Tagesspiegel" shares sold to Gerckens were still attributable to the group. Holtzbrinck unsuccessfully challenged this decision before the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court and the Federal Court of Justice and sold the Berliner Verlag to an Anglo-American investor consortium (VSS) and the Mecom Group.

In 2001, Dieter von Holtzbrinck, then 60 years old, transferred management to his half-brother Stefan von Holtzbrinck, but remained chairman of the supervisory board until mid-2006. A major restructuring then took place on June 1, 2009. Dieter von Holtzbrinck sold his shares in Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH & Co. KG (GvH) to the two remaining shareholders, Stefan von Holtzbrinck and Monika Schoeller. He founded Dieter von Holtzbrinck Medien GmbH (DvH Medien), into which some of the group's media assets were transferred: the "Tagesspiegel," a Berlin daily newspaper founded in 1945; 50 percent of Zeitverlag (the weekly newspaper "Die Zeit"), with the remaining 50 percent still held by GvH GmbH & Co. KG; the Handelsblatt publishing group; the advertising marketer IQ Media Marketing GmbH; and 50 percent of the business database GBI-Genios.

Holtzbrinck then gradually withdrew from the newspaper business. The Würzburg-based Main-Post media group was sold to the Pressedruck media group ("Augsburger Allgemeine") in December 2010; the "Südkurier" (Konstanz) also went to the Pressedruck media group in 2013. The Saarbrücken newspaper group ("Saarbrücker Zeitung" with "Pfälzischer Merkur," "Trierischer Volksfreund," and "Lausitzer Rundschau") also went to the Rheinische Post media group in 2013. Following the divestment of these holdings, only 50 percent of the Zeitverlag ("Die Zeit") publishing house remained with the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group in the newspaper industry.

Finally, a quote from the Holtzbrinck website: "The group consistently pursued a complete realignment with the three business areas of Science and Education, Trade Publishing, and Digital Investments, reflecting its strategic direction. In 2015, the unique opportunity of a joint venture with Springer Science+Business Media arose, bringing together two of the most influential educational and trade publishers and underscoring the group's commitment to science, higher education, and training in the international competitive arena."

management

Surprisingly, the “silent tycoon”, shareholder and chairman of the supervisory board Dieter von Holtzbrinck withdrew from the family company of the same name in June 2006. Since then, Stefan von Holtzbrinck (born 1963) takes the reins. Like his half-brother Dieter, Stefan von Holtzbrinck is someone who rarely appears in public, despite positive sales figures. He is, writes kress pro about the head of the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group and publisher of Die Zeit (with a 50 percent stake), "something a little different," an "approachable publisher" who isn't concerned with maximum profit, but rather with decent profit with maximum quality. He sees media "as the key to making the world a little better."

Another quote from the interview with "kress pro" (October 2024). Question: "A burden accompanies every heir. Ultimately, you owe your position not to performance, but to lineage. How did you deal with it?" Stefan von Holtzbrinck: "I think if I ever felt like I might have deserved it, it was probably only in the last few years. I was able to fundamentally restructure the company and place it on a new financial footing without abandoning our core values or diminishing our innovative strength. Many colleagues I greatly valued worked with me to create the conditions for us to become a global market leader in science communication and to outperform the market in our other segments as well. As I said, this isn't solely my achievement, but above all a shared success. And yes, you actually always live with self-doubt, and that's healthy; it keeps you grounded."

However, Stefan von Holtzbrinck once came under considerable criticism. In 2007, he purchased the social network StudiVZ for €85 million. A network that also interested Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg so much that he offered Holtzbrinck a five percent stake in Facebook in exchange for a takeover of StudiVZ. Holtzbrinck declined in 2010. StudiVZ was closed shortly thereafter, but in 2020, for example, the five percent of Facebook would have been worth almost €29 billion. Stefan von Holtzbrinck would have made the deal of his life; one of the most expensive mistakes in German business history.

Dieter von HoltzbrinckIn 2016, on his 75th birthday, he resigned as Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Dieter von Holtzbrinck Medien GmbH (DvH Medien). The newspapers behind which his name stood were "Der Tagesspiegel," "Handelsblatt," and "Die Zeit" (50 percent). "The three publishing houses, with their major titles, are in such excellent shape that I am implementing the succession plan with a clear conscience," von Holtzbrinck stated in a statement at the time. He looked forward to his future role as a "non-operational publisher" (quote from "Horizont").

In Stuttgart, Dieter von Holtzbrinck first built a global player from his father's publishing business – from regional newspapers to book publishers. He left this position in 2006, but in 2009 founded DvH Medien GmbH, one of the largest publishing portfolios in Germany with 2022 revenues of €556.9 million. On the occasion of his 80th birthday at the end of September 2021, "Horizont" wrote of him: "Influential and almost never seen." Dieter von Holtzbrinck rarely gives interviews, just as his media holding company lacks a website. In 2010, the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" wrote that he had once been greeted with: "I thought you were a phantom!"

Business segments

The group is divided into seven “globally oriented dynamic business areas”: Springer Nature, Macmillan Publishers and Holtzbrinck Book Publishers, Macmillan Learning, Holtzbrinck Digital, Digital Science, DIE ZEIT Group, Funds & Investments.

Springer Nature Group: Founded in 1842, the publishing house is headquartered in Berlin and employs more than 9,000 people. Today, it is one of the world's largest scientific publishers. These include the scientific journal "Nature," the "Ärztezeitung," "JB Metzler" (Heidelberg), and "Palgrave MacMillan." In 2023, the publisher generated revenues of approximately €1.85 billion (slightly more than half of Holtzbrinck's total revenue of €3.6 billion, according to its own figures). At the beginning of October 2004, the Springer Nature Group (in which Holtzbrinck retains control with a 50.6 percent stake) successfully completed its IPO.

Macmillan Publishers: one of the "Big Five" English-language publishing groups (alongside Penguin Random House, Hachette, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster), founded in 1843 in London by the Scottish brothers Daniel and Alexander MacMillan. They published two of the most famous works of children's literature of the Victorian era: "Alice in Wonderland" (1865, by Lewis Carroll), and "The Jungle Book" (1894, by Rudyard Kipling). Macmillan Publishers includes the following publishing companies (selection): Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Picador, Celadon Books, Flatiron Books, Henry Holt and Company, and Tor Publishing Group. In addition, the German Holtzbrinck Book Publishers: S. Fischer Verlage, Rowohlt, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Droemer Knaur, Argon Verlag. Here's another quote from company founder Georg von Holtzbrinck, which he is said to have said on his deathbed: "The others may be bigger, but we have Fischer and Rowohlt."

DIE ZEIT Group: Weekly newspaper with a circulation of over 600,000 sold copies and a reach of more than two million readers, "Germany's leading quality newspaper." "DIE ZEIT," according to Holtzbrinck, is an "orientation medium" and a "platform for democratic discourse." Stefan von Holtzbrinck (together with the heirs of his half-sister Monika Schoeller) and his half-brother Dieter von Holtzbrinck each hold 50 percent of the shares in the publishing group. The ZEIT family of brands also includes: "ZEIT ONLINE," "ZEIT AKADEMIE," "ZEIT SPRACHEN," "academics," "e-fellows.net," "GOOD JOBS," "Good Conversations," "STUDIO ZX," "ZEIT CREDO," and "ZEIT WELTKUNST VERLAG."

Macmillan Learning: This is about "developing educational content of the highest quality." Core brands: Imprints such as Bedford/St. Martin's, WH Freeman, and Worth Publishers; the digital platforms Achieve and iClicker (with a wide range of digital teaching and learning methods).

Holtzbrinck Digital: digital investments in start-ups, for example in the science or education sector
Digital Science: Investments in start-ups in the research and science sector
Funds & Investments: Fund investments in “promising areas”