This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Business News Labels & Publishers Media
Bertelsmann confirms RTL share sale to fuel expansion
By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 5 April 2013
BMG owner Bertelsmann has confirmed that it will sell up to 17% of its TV business RTL to generate cash to fund other acquisitions.
As previously reported, in a recent financial briefing, Bertelsmann boss Thomas Rabe confirmed he was looking for new expansion opportunities, especially in digital, education and music rights, the latter via the v2 BMG business, which the German media group now owns outright, it having previously been a JV with equity group KKR. Rabe added that he would be primarily looking to acquire existing businesses in these areas that were valued between 500 and 750 million euros.
Bertelsmann hopes that it could raise as much as two billion euros through its sale of shares in RTL, even though the media firm will still have a 75% stake in the TV business after the offloading of stock. Rabe also confirmed yesterday a plan to list RTL on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, instead of the Luxembourg Stock Exchange and the Euronext Brussels market here it currently sits.
