g tersloh type private se & co. kgaa industry mass media founded july 1 1835 ; 181 years ago 1835 07 01 1 founder carl bertelsmann headquarters g tersloh germany area served worldwide key people thomas rabe 2 chairman and ceo christoph mohn 3 chairman of the supervisory board products publishing record label broadcasting cable television movie production revenue 17.141 billion 2015 net income 1.108 billion 2015 total assets 22.908 billion 2015 total equity 9.434 billion 2015 owner bertelsmann foundation and others number of employees 117 249 2015 divisions rtl group penguin random house gruner jahr bmg arvato bertelsmann printing group bertelsmann education group bertelsmann investments website bertelsmann.com footnotes references annual report 2015 bertelsmann se & co. kgaa is a german multinational corporation based in g tersloh north rhine westphalia germany . it is one of the world s largest mass media companies and also active in the service sector and education . 4 5 bertelsmann was founded as a publishing house by carl bertelsmann in 1835 . 6 after world war ii bertelsmann under the leadership of reinhard mohn went from being a medium sized enterprise to a major conglomerate offering not only books but also television radio magazines and business services . 7 bertelsmann is an unlisted and capital market oriented company 8 which remains primarily controlled by the mohn family . 9 10 since 2016 major divisions of bertelsmann are rtl group penguin random house gruner jahr bmg arvato bertelsmann printing group bertelsmann education group and bertelsmann investments . 11 contents 1 history 1.1 1835 to 1944 1.2 1945 to 1970 1.3 1971 to 1983 1.4 1984 to 1993 1.5 1994 to 2000 1.6 2001 to 2007 1.7 2008 to 2016 2 divisions 2.1 rtl group 2.2 penguin random house 2.3 gruner jahr 2.4 bmg 2.5 arvato 2.6 bertelsmann printing group 2.7 bertelsmann education group 2.8 bertelsmann investments 3 ownership 4 locations 5 criticism 6 notes and references 7 further reading 8 external links history edit 1835 to 1944 edit first logo of c. bertelsmann 2012 the nucleus of the corporation is the c. bertelsmann verlag a publishing house established in 1835 by carl bertelsmann in g tersloh . 12 carl bertelsmann was a representative of the minden ravensberger erweckungsbewegung a protestant revival movement whose writings he published . 13 the c. bertelsmann verlag originally specialized in theological literature expanded its publications to include school and textbooks and in the 1920s and 1930s increasingly entered into the field of light fiction . 14 during the third reich the publishing house gained a prominent position with its affordable bertelsmann volksausgaben people s editions . 15 in particular war adventure books such as werner von langsdorff s fliegerbuch on aviation were a commercial success . 16 heinrich mohn belonged to the patrons circle of the paramilitary schutzstaffel organization and sought to turn his company into a national socialist model enterprise . 17 during world war ii the c. bertelsmann verlag became a leading supplier to the wehrmacht 18 even surpassing the central publishing house of the nsdap franz eher . 19 especially in the years between 1939 and 1941 the revenues of the c. bertelsmann verlag skyrocketed . 20 jewish slave laborers were not forced to work in g tersloh but in printing plants in lithuania with which the c. bertelsmann verlag cooperated . 21 22 in 1944 the reichsschrifttumskammer reich chamber of literature closed the publishing house to mobilize all powers for victory . 23 another essential reason for this was criminal paper racketeering by some publisher s employees 24 which led to a trial in 1944 . 25 26 1945 to 1970 edit after world war ii the company portrayed itself to the allied control authority as a christian publisher that was part of the resistance to nazism and allegedly persecuted . ties to national socialist organizations were initially denied . after it became known that erroneous or at least inadequate statements had been made heinrich mohn stepped down as the head of the publishing house . 27 reinhard mohn one of his three sons took over the c. bertelsmann verlag as hans heinrich mohn had been killed in the war and sigbert mohn was still a prisoner of war . 28 in 1947 the allies finally granted the company a publishing license . 29 after the currency reform in 1948 there was a market slump in the book trade that also led to the next existential crisis for the c. bertelsmann verlag . 30 under these conditions in 1950 bertelsmann launched the lesering book club to stimulate sales . 31 the customers ordered books via subscription and in return received discounted prices . 32 the business increasingly shifted from the publishing house to the sale of books which was decisive to further growth . 33 in 1959 the c. bertelsmann verlag was restructured from that point on theological literature was published in the g tersloher verlagshaus a new publishing house which was consolidated with the rufer verlag . fiction poetry and art came under the roof of sigbert mohn verlag . the c. bertelsmann verlag focused on nonfiction books in particular dictionaries guidebooks reference books and journals . 34 the 1950s and 1960s bertelsmann expanded its activities into new business areas thus 1956 the company entered the music market with the bertelsmann schallplattenring record club . two years later ariola one of the most successful german record labels was launched 35 and virtually at the same time the sonopress record pressing plant was established . 36 with the kommissionshaus buch & ton book and audio commissioning company from which the vereinigte verlagsauslieferung vva emerged bertelsmann laid the cornerstone for its service business . 37 in 1964 bertelsmann purchases the already broken up ufa from the deutsche bank and built on its presence in cinema and television . 38 39 in 1969 bertelsmann acquired shares in the magazine publisher gruner jahr . a merger with axel springer also planned at the time for which a loan for millions had been taken out temporarily from westdeutsche landesbank 40 failed in 1970 . 41 1971 to 1983 edit portrait of reinhard mohn 2008 from 1971 bertelsmann operated as a joint stock company aktiengesellschaft . 42 the increasingly diversifying book publishers were bundled in the verlagsgruppe bertelsmann publishing group at the end of the 1960s . 43 in 1972 this company moved from g tersloh to munich . 44 key divisions remained in g tersloh for which a new office building was built in 1976 at the group s official location . 45 to this day it has remained the bertelsmann headquarters referred to as the bertelsmann corporate center . the rapid growth of bertelsmann led to structural and financial problems . in the 1970s financing requirements reached their peak . from 1975 to 1980 for example the return on sales fell below one percent . 46 bertelsmann also encountered new regulatory rules in its home market in particular through laws governing mergers . 47 larger acquisitions became practically impossible . at the same time there was an increasing saturation of the german market for the bertelsmann lesering 48 whereas the foreign book clubs earned the lion s share of revenues in this corporate division . 49 the internationalization of bertelsmann initiated in the 1960s was taken further 50 among other things bertelsmann acquired shares in the publishing houses plaza & jan s 51 based in barcelona and bantam books 52 from new york city . in the united states a location was established for ariola and arista records was acquired . 53 in the period of the 1979 1980 recession there was discussion concerning the succession of reinhard mohn . 54 in 1981 he finally moved over to the supervisory board . manfred fischer who had previously headed up management of gruner jahr became the new chairman and chief executive officer . 55 with this move bertelsmann for the first time was led by a manager who was not a member of the owner family . 56 mark w ssner became fischer s successor as chairman and chief executive officer of bertelsmann in 1983 . 57 the affair concerning the forged hitler diaries occurred at the beginning of his tenure which damaged the reputation of gruner jahr and bertelsmann as a whole . 58 59 1984 to 1993 edit mark w ssner brought the subsidiaries closer to headquarters in g tersloh . 60 61 in particular this involved business development and controlling . 62 under the leadership of mark w ssner bertelsmann also took a stake in rtl plus the first private tv broadcaster in germany . 63 in 1986 bertelsmann acquired a majority in rca records and merged its activities in the music market with the new bertelsmann music group . 64 sonopress a company established in 1958 to manufacture records was not part of the bertelsmann music group rather it was assigned to the print and industrial division . 65 with doubleday another well known publishing house was acquired . 66 as a result the group ascended to become a well known international company and bertelsmann was temporarily the world s largest media group . 67 in the financial year of 1990 1991 bertelsmann had over 45 000 employees and reached sales of 14.5 billion deutsche mark annually . 63 % involved business outside of germany and the united states was the most important foreign market . 68 after the german reunification and the end of the cold war bertelsmann also expanded to east germany as well as into central and eastern europe . 69 for example in 1989 the first branch outlet of the club bertelsmann opened in dresden . 70 the later development of bertelsmann in the 1990s was marked by the spread of the internet as a mass medium as well as changes to the ownership structure . 71 in 1993 reinhard mohn transferred the majority of capital shares to the bertelsmann foundation and assumed its chairmanship . 72 the foundation itself was financed by profits of the company . 73 1994 to 2000 edit penguin random house tower in new york city 2005 in 1994 gruner jahr acquired the magazines of the new york times whereby bertelsmann once again expanded its presence in the most important foreign market . 67 from 1995 there was a new business division of multimedia at bertelsmann . its centerpiece was aol europe 74 a joint venture of america online and bertelsmann . 75 prior to that bertelsmann had already acquired a direct share in america online . 76 77 the multimedia division also included mediaways and pixelpark . 78 in 1997 ufa merged with compagnie luxembourgeoise de t l diffusion clt to become a joint entertainment group based in luxembourg . 79 with clt ufa bertelsmann was able to decisively diversify its business . 80 in 1998 thomas middelhoff succeeded mark w ssner as bertelsmann chairman and chief executive officer . 81 thomas middelhoff was already previously a member of the management board of the multimedia division . 82 mark w ssner joined the supervisory board of the company and also became chairman of the bertelsmann foundation . 83 this management change coincided with the takeover of random house . 84 85 86 with this the group advanced to become the largest publishing group in the english speaking world . 87 random house was merged with bantam doubleday dell 88 and the global headquarters of all bertelsmann publishing houses were relocated to new york city . 89 in 1999 bertelsmann acquired the publisher springer science media which among other things was the market leader for mathematics and physics . 90 91 in the year 2000 bertelsmann dissolved its joint venture with aol europe . 92 the sale of the shares in the joint venture to america online yielded billions to bertelsmann . 93 in the same year bertelsmann and pearson formed the rtl group from their tv subsidiaries . 94 bertelsmann initially owned a minority in the