Sales 2022: € 1.143 billion

Overview

The Essen-based Funke Group (until 2013 WAZ Media Group), one of Europe's largest regional newspaper publishers, traditionally focuses on the newspaper and magazine sector. In 2012, Petra Grotkamp (born 1943), the youngest daughter of WAZ co-founder Jakob Funke, acquired the 50 percent share held by the other founding family, the Brosts. Petra Grotkamp has since transferred the 100 percent stake she then held in the Funke Media Group to her three children.

General Information

Headquarters
Friedrichstraße 34-38
45128 Essen
Germany
Telephone: 0049 201 804-0
Internet: www.waz-mediengruppe.de, www.derwesten.de

Branches of trade: Newspapers, magazines, radio, internet services, press distribution, advertising time marketing, rights trading
Financial year: 01.01. – 31.12.
Legal form: GmbH & Co. KGaA
Founding year: 1948

Basic economic data

	2022	2021	2020	2019
Total sales (in million euros)	1.143	1.119	1.142,5	1.210,4
Employees	n/a	5.403	6.286	n/a

Sources: Federal Gazette (2021), Die Deutsche Wirtschaft.de (2020)

Executives and Directors

management team:

• Simone Kasik, Group Managing Director, Chief Financial Officer
• Christoph Rüth, Group Managing Director, Regional Media, Printing, Logistics, IT
• Stephan Thurm, Member of the Executive Board, Digital Division
• Jesper Doub, Management Magazines
• Jochen Beckmann, Management MagazinesChristoph Rüth

Shareholders:

• Julia Becker
• Nora Marx
• Niklas Wilcke

History

The nucleus of the WAZ newspaper group was the "Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung", founded in 1948 by the social democrat Erich Brost (1903-1995) and the conservative publisher Jakob Funke (1901-1975). After the newspaper had acquired a dominant market position in the Ruhr area by increasing circulation and acquiring smaller papers, the WAZ publishing house bought into the "Westfalenpost" in 1974. Günther Grotkamp (1927-2023), a business economist and lawyer born in Essen-Werden, joined the publishing house in 1960 as legal advisor and head of human resources, became Jakob Funke's closest confidant, also husband of Funke's youngest daughter Petra and, according to an obituary, "architect of the Funke Media Group".

In the following years, the Dortmund SPD newspaper "Westfälische Rundschau" and the "Neue Rhein/Neue Ruhr Zeitung" were also taken over. In 1976, the WAZ group was founded. Its distribution area stretched from the Dutch border to East Westphalia and the Sauerland ("Iserlohner Kreisanzeiger"). The managing director duo consisted of Günther Grotkamp, Funke's authorized representative, and Erich Schumann (1930-2007), adopted son of Erich Brost and authorized representative of the Brost side.

The one invented by Grotkamp WAZ model arose: Parts of the WAZ media group competed with each other, which was also related to the requirements of the Federal Cartel Office. The leading regional subscription newspapers in the Ruhr region cooperated in administration, production, sales and advertising; the individual labels and editorial departments, however, remained independent, and the newspapers remained journalistically independent. Under Günther Grotkamp's leadership, the WAZ media group expanded into a national and later international media group, and was long considered one of the most profitable media companies in Germany.

After the death of the two founders, a complex series of divisions of the inheritance arose. Jakob Funke's shares initially went to his daughters Petra Grotkamp, Gisela Holthoff, Renate Schubries and Ute de Graffenried in 1975 (but she cashed out in 1989). Gisela Holthoff's shares were inherited in 2011 by her adopted son, the lawyer and entrepreneur Stephan Holthoff-Pförtner (then also spokesman for the Funke website, and from 2017 to 2021 Minister for Federal and European Affairs and International Affairs in North Rhine-Westphalia). 60 percent of Erich Brost's shares were inherited in 1995 by his widow Anneliese Brost, and 40 percent by long-time managing director Erich Schumann, who was adopted by Erich Brost in 1985. After the deaths of Schumann (2007) and Anneliese Brost (2010), the shares in Brost Verwaltungs-GmbH went to Erich Brost's three grandchildren.

As a result, the two management companies each held 50 percent of the shares, and the two groups could only “decide by mutual agreement,” which led to considerable disputes. They faced each other in court and blocked each other. manager-magazin wrote in 2006: "Because the people from WAZ are not only blessed with good fortune, but also rough and violent and nasty and generally quite likeable guys who are not afraid of anything and take on anyone who seems stupid or foolish to them, even if it is their own people." Or the SZ later wrote, on December 22, 2011, about "the WAZ group, which would like to be a media group - but was often just a quarrelsome bunch, a family dispute between the owner clans institutionalized by lawyers and consultants."

For a long time, the group gave the impression that it had a good financial cushion. After reunification, three Thuringian newspapers were bought, numerous women's and TV magazines and the "Braunschweiger Zeitung", and new ventures were started in private radio and online media. In December 2007, the group was one of the promising bidders for the "Süddeutsche Zeitung". The expansion strategy in Southeast Europe was also described as very profitable. There were occasional problems with nationalist movements - as in Bulgaria - but the WAZ always celebrated itself as "the only media company that has its journalists' backs" (Bodo Hombach, the first managing director not from the family). There seemed to be nothing to prevent further regionalization, investment in the core brands and closer integration of regional press, Internet and TV.

In September 2008, however, the management announced a rigorous austerity program and a departure from the proven WAZ model, the independent, regionally anchored newspaper titles. Now, in the core region, with the titles "WAZ", "NRZ", "Westfälische Rundschau" and "Westfalenpost", there should be previously unused synergies and a savings potential of 30 million euros. The management did not even rule out redundancies for operational reasons; 262 editorial positions should be eliminated, ie every fourth permanent employee of the four Ruhr area titles would be made redundant.

In 2012, Petra Grotkamp, the youngest daughter of the company's founder Jakob Funke, born in 1943, took over the Brost family's shares (50 percent) for 500 million euros, according to information from the "Hamburger Abendblatt". After 63 years, the division into two owner families ended; the phase in which each clan was keen to buy shares from the other. Managing director Bodo Hombach resigned from his post and reiterated that he saw the reorganization of the group as "a great opportunity for a new WAZ era in a media landscape undergoing change". According to company sources, the sale of newspapers and job cuts were not planned; instead, a quality offensive was to be launched. The opposite was the case: the entire editorial staff of the "Westfälische Rundschau" was closed (which led to 4,000 to 5,000 subscription cancellations), as was the entire Thuringian online unit.

In March 2013, the group changed its name to Funke Media GroupIn the summer, to the surprise and incomprehensibility of observers, various regional newspapers and TV and women’s magazines were bought by Axel Springer, taking on high debts (purchase price: 920 million euros). And in 2015, a new central editorial office was set up in Berlin by former Focus editor-in-chief Jörg Quoos, which content desk in Essen was closed. The journalists' association DJV criticized the fact that Essen journalists had been kept in the dark about these plans.

management

The Funke management team consists of Simone Kasik, Chief Financial Officer, commercial group management with the areas of Controlling, Corporate Finance, HR, Legal, Compliance/Real Estate; Christoph Rüth, newspaper sector; Stephan Thurm, managing responsibility for the digital division; Jesper Doub and Jochen Beckmann, Head of the magazine division: all brands in the women's, lifestyle, program and puzzle portfolio.

In 2017, Petra Grotkamp transferred her shares in the group in equal parts to her three children Julia Becker, Nora Marx and Niklas Wilcke. Julia Becker has been chairwoman of the Funke supervisory board since January 1, 2018. In June 2021, it was announced that Becker, Marx and Wilcke had taken over all of the shares and paid between 250 and 280 million euros for the minority shares of co-shareholders Renate Schubries - a sister of Petra Grotkamp - and Stephan Holthoff-Pförtner. The Grotkamp children and siblings are now the sole owners of the publishing group.

Business segments

print media
Print media and advertising marketing are the core business of the group. In 2024, the publishing group published over 18 daily newspapers, 40 magazines and more than 100 advertising papers in Germany with a circulation of 4.2 million copies (2024). In addition to the main paper of the "Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung" (WAZ), which is one of the largest regional newspapers in Germany, and the regionally important titles "Neue Ruhr/Neue Rhein Zeitung", "Westfalenpost", "Westfälische Rundschau" and the "Iserlohner Kreisanzeiger" (total circulation in 2024 of WAZ + NRZ + WP + WR + IKZ: 336,224), and the "Thüringer Allgemeine", "Ostthüringer Zeitung", "Thüringische Landeszeitung", "Braunschweiger Zeitung", "Berliner Morgenpost" and "Berliner Woche", there are other regional editions.

The best-known magazine titles include "Gong", "Hörzu", "Bild + Funk", "TVdirekt", "Das goldene Blatt", "Bild der Frau", "Echo der Frau", "Frau aktuell", "Frau im Spiegel", "Ein Herz für Tiere", "Frau von heute" and "die aktuelle". The group is the leader in the advertising paper market in the Ruhr region. As a shareholder in the association of Westdeutscher Verlag und Werbegesellschaft (WVW, a wholly owned subsidiary of WAZ) and Ostruhr Anzeigenblattgesellschaft (ORA, each a 50% subsidiary of WAZ and "Ruhr Nachrichten"), it publishes free advertising papers with 76 titles and a weekly circulation of over five million copies. Since 2007, the group has also been active in book publishing following the takeover of "Klartext-Verlag". 

TV/Radio
In 2005, Funke sold its minority stake in the RTL Group back to the main shareholder Bertelsmann for 520 million euros. The company also has a stake in eleven local radio stations in North Rhine-Westphalia and one in Lower Saxony.

On-line
In 2007, "DerWesten.de" was launched, which is intended to strengthen the group's regional and local journalistic competence in the Ruhr region and to span the various newspaper labels. According to the group, the site is the largest regional news portal in Germany.

Since spring 2014, a large part of the digital activities have been bundled in a new headquarters in Berlin. The subsidiary Funke Digital was founded there, which today operates the online tabloid portals "News38.de", "Moin.de", "DerWesten.de" and online magazines such as "Futurezone.de", "Leckerschmecker.me" and "Einfachschön.me".

In 2014, Funke entered the online market for job advertisements and took over “joblocal.de”. In 2015, “absolventa.de” was added to the portfolio. In recent years, the health portal “Onmeda.de” followed and in 2024 the large music portal “Schlager.de” was acquired by Funke Digital.

printing companies
The group has two “group-owned printing centers” in Hagen and Braunschweig, where newspapers, magazines, supplements and advertising sheets are produced.

sales and service companies
In 1979, MZV Moderner Zeitschriften Vertrieb GmbH & Co. KG was founded, the second strongest company in the distribution market after Axel Springer (Hubert Burda Media has been a shareholder in MZV since 2010, and the Klambt media group since 2022).

Current developments

On March 24, 2025, it was announced: Bertelsmann was selling, or rather, the Funke Media Group was acquiring, "Brigitte," "Gala," and "Eltern." A Funke press release stated: "A good ten years after acquiring a large part of Axel Springer's print portfolio, we are once again acting in accordance with our deep conviction that independent journalism has a future by acquiring these three outstanding brands." However, the German Journalists' Association commented: "It is now crucial that the titles and jobs are retained in Hamburg for the long term, even after the transition to the Funke Media Group."

At the beginning of March 2025, the announcement also came: Funke Digital is expanding into Scandinavia and acquiring a stake in Media Group Denmark (MGDK), a media company founded in 2014. MGDK, Denmark's leading digital media company, also active in Norway and Sweden, operates news and website offerings, including news, sports, entertainment, tech, and food.