Mathias Döpfner, KKR Said Near Deal on Axel Springer Split
(Bloomberg) -- German billionaire Mathias Döpfner and KKR & Co. are nearing a deal to split up media giant Axel Springer, breaking up its fast-growing classifieds unit from its news businesses, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
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The parties could make an announcement about the planned split as soon as this week, the people said, asking not to be identified as the talks are private. The deal, which was first reported by the Financial Times, could value the whole company at €13.5 billion ($15 billion), including more than €10 billion for the classifieds business.
The parties are still hammering out final details and the talks, which have been taking place for months, could be delayed or fall apart, the people said. Representatives of Axel Springer and KKR declined to comment.
A split could hand KKR control of the faster-growing classifieds business, which Springer described as a “very strong driver” of its business last year, while allowing it to step away from the more politically fraught journalism side. The separation would mark a shift in the partnership after Döpfner and Friede Springer — the founder’s widow who controlled the company for years after his death — teamed up with KKR to take the company private.
Axel Springer’s media division has focused its expansion on digital sites in the US in the last decade, buying Politico and Business Insider. It was also one of the first big media brands to strike a deal with Sam Altman’s OpenAI, agreeing to a three-year deal to let the generative AI company use its news articles and content.
Business Insider drew the ire of billionaire Bill Ackman last year after BI published stories alleging his wife, designer and former Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Neri Oxman, had plagiarized parts of her doctoral dissertation. The article came in the wake of Ackman’s campaign against former Harvard University President Claudine Gay, who quit in January after she was accused of plagiarism in her own work.
Oxman’s lawyer had asked Döpfner and Axel Springer’s general counsel to correct the story and issue an apology, though BI stood by its reporting. Ackman accused BI of a “campaign to destroy” her reputation and threatened to sue the publication.
KKR and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board acquired just under half of Axel Springer in 2019. The company’s portfolio of classified ad websites includes jobs platform StepStone and real estate ads unit Aviv. Axel Sringer is also still influential in its home media market, and owns the nearly 80-year-old Die Welt broadsheet and the Bild tabloid, Germany’s best-selling newspaper.
(Updates with additional background throughout)
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