Axel Springer

In 1946, Axel Springer founded a publishing house in Hamburg under a British press license; its first publication was Nordwestdeutsche Hefte, which printed radio programming. In the same year, it launched the listings magazine HÖR ZU!, which reached a circulation of one million copies for the first time less than three years later. The company’s first “publishing headquarters” was a sheep barn on the Lüneburg Heath.⁠[1][2][3][3][3]

On October 14, 1948, the company launched the daily newspaper HAMBURGER ABENDBLATT under the slogan “Be kind to one another!”⁠[1][3]

In 1952, Axel Springer launched BILD, calling it a “printed response to television”; in 1956, he launched BILD am SONNTAG.⁠[3][1]

In 1953, Axel Springer bought the national newspapers WELT and WELT am SONNTAG, expanding his business into national titles.⁠[1]

On May 25, 1959, two days before the end of a Soviet ultimatum on Berlin, Axel Springer laid the foundation stone for the new publishing headquarters in Berlin. On October 6, 1966, the 19-story building at Kochstrasse 50, right next to the Berlin Wall, was opened and called a “lighthouse of freedom.”⁠[1][1]

In 1967, Axel Springer drafted the first version of the company’s guiding principles, the “Essentials,” which included advocating the peaceful reunification of Germany and promoting reconciliation between Germans and Israel and support for Israel’s right to exist. The principles were expanded several times: solidarity with the United States was added in 2001, and opposition to all forms of extremism was added in 2015.⁠[3][3][3][3]

In 1968, the extra-parliamentary opposition, leftists, and liberals launched protests against the publishing house, and protesters attacked the Berlin headquarters. In 1972, two bombs exploded in the Hamburg publishing building, injuring people. In 2009, the company critically reviewed its conflict with the “1968 generation” and instances of excessive reporting by some of its media outlets at the time, and documented the findings in a public archive.⁠[1][3][1][3][3]

On June 28, 1985, Axel Springer began selling nearly half of the shares of the company, which had been structured as a joint-stock company (AG) since 1970; on July 31, 49% of the shares were listed on the stock exchange. On September 22 of that year, Axel Springer died, and then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl called him “a great German.” His widow, Friede Springer, continued his life’s work, and the company entered a turbulent period of shareholder power struggles and frequent changes at the top.⁠[4][4][4][3]

In 1986, the newly launched AUTO BILD began entering international markets through licensing. In July 1988, the company acquired a stake in the Madrid-based Spanish publishing company SARPE, its first acquisition outside Germany; it later formed a joint venture in Hungary and entered Switzerland and other Eastern European markets in the 1990s.⁠[3][1][3]

In January 2002, Mathias DöpfnerMathias DöpfnerMathias Döpfner is a media executive who has been Chief Executive Officer of the German company Axel Springer since 2002 and, together with Friede Springer, holds the vast majority of its shares; during his tenure, the company has pursued a digital transformation and expanded its businesses in the United States and the United Kingdom.Open the full entry became the company’s Chief Executive Officer (chairman of the executive board), and together with Friede Springer reorganized the company and committed fully to future technologies. At the time, the company was a loss-making German newspaper and magazine publisher; as the advertising market shifted from print to the internet, it invested in digital companies such as the recruiting platform Stepstone and the price comparison platform Idealo, thereby entering the classifieds business.⁠[4][3][5][3]

In 2003, the company’s Polish newspaper FAKT became the country’s largest newspaper almost overnight; the company’s Polish business has been operated as a joint venture with the Swiss publisher Ringier since 1994, and its portal Onet is also one of the leading local digital portals.⁠[3][3]

On August 5, 2005, Axel Springer announced its intention to acquire the television group ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG. Germany’s Federal Cartel Office and the Commission on Concentration in the Media Sector (KEK) refused to approve the acquisition, and the company withdrew its offer in 2006. The company later said this instead freed up capital and resources for digitalization and internationalization.⁠[4][3][4][3]

On September 2, 2008, Axel Springer announced its acquisition of a majority stake in the recruiting platform Stepstone, expanding its classifieds business. In 2010, the company’s shares were included in Germany’s MDAX index for the first time; in 2011, the company acquired a majority stake in the French real estate portal SeLoger.com.⁠[4][1][1]

On December 2, 2013, the company announced its conversion from a joint-stock company (AG) into the European company Axel Springer SE, to facilitate its international market orientation.⁠[4]

On May 1, 2014, Funke Media Group took over regional newspapers and magazines from Axel Springer, including Berliner Morgenpost, HAMBURGER ABENDBLATT, and HÖRZU, among them titles with which the company started in the 1940s. In the same year, the company signed an agreement with the American political media outlet POLITICO to form POLITICO Europe, a 50/50 joint venture based in Brussels.⁠[4][1][1]

On September 29, 2015, Axel Springer announced a binding agreement to acquire approximately 88% of the American business news website Business Insider, at a purchase price of $442 million based on 100% of the company; together with its existing stake of about 9%, the company would hold about 97% after the deal, with the remaining shares held by Bezos Expeditions, Jeff Bezos’s investment company, and founder Henry Blodget continuing to lead the site. In the same year, the company withdrew from Russia because independent journalism was no longer possible there.⁠[6][6][6][6][3]

On June 10, 2016, the company announced the acquisition of 93% of the shares of the New York digital market research firm eMarketer, paying about $242 million based on a company valuation of about $250 million.⁠[7][7]

On June 12, 2019, Axel Springer signed an investor agreement with an investment vehicle owned by funds advised by the private equity firm KKR, and KKR announced a voluntary public tender offer to all shareholders at €63 per share in cash, a premium of about 39.7% to the unaffected share price, implying an equity value of about €6.8 billion. At the time, Friede Springer directly and indirectly controlled 42.6% of the shares and Döpfner held 2.8%, and both agreed to retain their holdings. On December 10, 2019, the offer received the last outstanding merger control clearance, and KKR secured a total of 44.28% of the share capital and voting rights. The Canadian pension fund investor CPP Investments was also a participant in this strategic partnership.⁠[8][8][8][8][8][9][9][3]

On April 6, 2020, Axel Springer ended its 35 years as a listed company and was delisted from the stock exchange.⁠[1]

On September 24, 2020, Friede Springer named Döpfner as her successor: Döpfner purchased about 4.1% of the shares from the Friede Springer Foundation and was to receive about 15% more through an envisaged gift from Friede Springer, giving him a total of about 22%; he would also exercise the voting rights of Friede Springer’s remaining shares in the future.⁠[10][10][10]

On October 30, 2020, Axel Springer and its subsidiary Insider Inc. announced the acquisition of a majority stake in the newsletter publisher Morning Brew, with founders Alex Lieberman and Austin Rief continuing as CEO and COO, respectively.⁠[11][11]

On October 18, 2021, Axel Springer relieved BILD Editor-in-Chief Julian Reichelt of his duties with immediate effect. The company said that press investigations had given it new information, and that the Executive Board had concluded that even after the compliance investigation ended that spring, Reichelt had still failed to keep a clear boundary between private and professional matters and had been untruthful to the Executive Board in this regard. The company stated that the compliance investigation never included allegations of sexual harassment or sexual assault, but did concern consensual relationships with female employees and indications of abuse of power; the company also said that the spring investigation had not proven mistakes that would have justified immediate dismissal, and that Reichelt had denied such mistakes.⁠[12][12][12][12][12]

On October 19, 2021, Axel Springer completed its acquisition of POLITICO, becoming the 100% owner of POLITICO, previously owned by Robert Allbritton, POLITICO’s 50% interest in POLITICO Europe, Protocol, E&E News, and AgencyIQ; the agreement had been announced on August 26 of that year.⁠[13][13][13]

On September 19, 2024, Döpfner announced a proposed split in a letter to employees: KKR and CPP Investments would acquire majority stakes in classifieds businesses including Stepstone and Aviv, with Axel Springer retaining minority stakes, while the remaining businesses, including BILD, Business Insider, POLITICO, WELT, Idealo, Bonial, and Morning Brew, would stay with Axel Springer SE, the vast majority of whose shares would be held by Friede Springer and Döpfner. He said the media company after the split would generate about half the revenue and a third of the profit of the original company.⁠[5][5][5][5]

On April 29, 2025, the new corporate structure took effect. KKR and CPP Investments sold their shares in Axel Springer and became majority owners of the two classifieds joint venture companies, Stepstone and AVIV, with Axel Springer retaining 10% of each. Axel Springer became a debt-free, family-owned media company for the first time since 1985, with Friede Springer and Döpfner together holding 95% of the shares and the rest held by the founder’s grandson Axel Sven Springer and the Friede Springer Foundation.⁠[14][14][14][14][14][14]

On March 6, 2026, Axel Springer announced an agreement with RedBird IMI to acquire the UK’s Telegraph Media Group, publisher of The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph, for £575 million in cash. Döpfner said the company had tried and failed to acquire The Telegraph more than 20 years earlier. On April 14, the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport approved the deal; on June 30, after receiving all required approvals in the UK, Ireland, and Austria, the acquisition was completed.⁠[2][2][15][16][16][16]

On May 21, 2026, the company reported its first annual results under the new structure: pro forma revenue for 2025 was about €2.2 billion, slightly above the previous year, and adjusted EBIT rose from €186.5 million to €241.4 million, an increase of 29.4%. The company also completed the acquisition in the US of Bisnow, a B2B real estate news and events platform, which together with Morning Brew will become part of the newly formed Brew Media Group.⁠[17][17]

On September 24, 2026, Axel Springer presented Peter ThielPeter ThielPeter Thiel is an American entrepreneur and investor, a co-founder of PayPal and Palantir Technologies, and the first outside investor in Facebook. He is a partner at the venture capital firm Founders Fund and founded the Thiel Fellowship, which funds young people to leave college and build new things; his public skepticism of higher education, his support for Trump in 2016, and his funding of litigation against Gawker Media have drawn controversy.Open the full entry with the Axel Springer Award 2026 in Berlin; the centerpiece of the event was a conversation between Döpfner, Thiel, and PayPalPayPalPayPal Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: PYPL) is an American digital payments company that operates payment brands including PayPal, Venmo, Braintree, and Xoom, providing online and in-store payments, money transfers, and consumer credit to consumers and merchants worldwide.Open the full entry co-founder Max Levchin, and the company produced an episode of the MD Meets podcast featuring Thiel to accompany the award. The award is an honorary distinction with no monetary endowment; previous recipients include Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Satya Nadella, and Sam Altman.⁠[18][18][18][18][18]

As of 2026, Axel Springer employed more than 10,000 people in over 25 countries; its publishing businesses include BILD, WELT, BUSINESS INSIDER, POLITICO, Morning Brew, and Telegraph Media Group, its commerce businesses include Awin, Bonial, and Idealo, and it retains a stake of about 10% in the classifieds businesses transferred to KKR. Friede Springer and Döpfner together hold about 95% of the company, and the other shareholder is Axel Sven Springer.⁠[3][3][3][3][3]

As of October 2026, the Executive Board consisted of Chief Executive Officer Döpfner, Mark Dekan, and Claudius Senst; the Supervisory Board consisted of Chairman Jan Bayer, Vice Chairwoman Friede Springer, and Johannes P. Huth.⁠[19][19][19][19][19][19]

Axel Springer: Official website: https://www.axelspringer.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[20]

X: Public account: https://x.com/axelspringer (opens in a new window)⁠[20]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/axelspringer/ (opens in a new window)⁠[20]

YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/axelspringer (opens in a new window)⁠[20]