Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA

Who owns Bertelsmann?
Bertelsmann is owned approximately 81% by the Bertelsmann Stiftung, a nonprofit foundation, and 19% by the Mohn family. The structure was created in the 1970s to secure the company's independence, and it has no public shareholders.

Is Bertelsmann publicly traded?
No. Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA is privately held. Its legal form is a partnership limited by shares, but its capital is held by the foundation and the family, with no public float or stock ticker.

What companies does Bertelsmann own?
Bertelsmann's major divisions are Penguin Random House, RTL Group, BMG, Arvato Group, Bertelsmann Marketing Services, the Bertelsmann Education Group, and Bertelsmann Investments.

Who is the CEO of Bertelsmann?
Thomas Rabe has been chairman and CEO since 2012. He is one of the longest-serving leaders of a major European media group.

What is Bertelsmann's annual revenue?
Bertelsmann reported group revenue of 19.0 billion euros for fiscal year 2025, with adjusted operating EBITDA of 3.0 billion euros and more than 75,000 employees worldwide.

Where is Bertelsmann headquartered?
Bertelsmann is headquartered in Gutersloh, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, the city where Carl Bertelsmann founded the company in 1835.

Carl Bertelsmann founded the company in 1835 in Gutersloh as a printer and publisher of Christian hymnals, operating as C. Bertelsmann Verlag. The firm grew steadily through the 19th century as a religious and educational publisher, and it remained a modest family business for its first century.

Reinhard Mohn transformed the company after taking over in 1947. He rebuilt it after the war and launched the Bertelsmann Lesering book club in 1950, which grew into one of the largest direct-to-consumer book businesses in the world and funded the company's expansion into magazines, records, and international publishing.

Through the second half of the 20th century Bertelsmann became a media conglomerate. It built the RCA and Ariola record labels into a major music business, acquired U.S. publisher Doubleday in 1986, and bought Random House in 1998, making it the world's largest trade book publisher. It also expanded into broadcasting with a stake in RTL, which became its largest division.

The defining structural change came in the 1970s when Mohn transferred the majority of the family's shares to the newly created Bertelsmann Stiftung, securing the company's independence and directing profits toward charitable work. The company converted to its current legal form, an SE & Co. KGaA, in later years.

In 2013 Bertelsmann merged Random House with Pearson's Penguin to create Penguin Random House, acquiring full ownership in 2020. It sold its book clubs and direct-to-consumer businesses as e-commerce disrupted that model, and it built out its services arm Arvato and its education group. A blocked 2022 attempt by Penguin Random House to acquire Simon & Schuster was the group's most significant recent regulatory setback.

Bertelsmann publishes group-wide environmental targets and has committed to climate neutrality across its operations by 2030, with interim targets for emissions reduction. It reports progress through its annual sustainability documentation, though these figures are self-reported rather than certified by a third-party standard.

The Bertelsmann Stiftung, its majority owner, directs dividends toward nonprofit social projects in education, health, and democracy, giving the company's profits a philanthropic destination unusual for a group of its size.

The most prominent recent regulatory event was the U.S. Department of Justice's successful 2022 lawsuit blocking Penguin Random House's planned $2.2 billion acquisition of Simon & Schuster, a ruling that cost the company a $200 million termination fee and reshaped U.S. publishing consolidation.

Historically, the company has faced scrutiny over its activities during the Nazi era. An independent commission it funded concluded that Bertelsmann cooperated with the Nazi regime and used forced labor, findings the company accepted and publicized, revising its earlier official history.

The group's concentrated ownership and its foundation's tax-exempt status have periodically drawn questions in Germany about the balance between nonprofit advantage and commercial power, though the structure is legally established and long-standing.