Reinhard Mohn, right, helped transform media group Bertelsmann AG from a German book publisher to an international media company.
(Bertelsmann Ag/File 1982 via Associated Press)
Reinhard Mohn; built up Bertelsmann AG
Reinhard Mohn, right, helped transform media group Bertelsmann AG from a German book publisher to an international media company.
(Bertelsmann Ag/File 1982 via Associated Press)
BERLIN - Reinhard Mohn, who helped transform media group Bertelsmann AG from a German book publisher to an international media company, has died, the company said yesterday. He was 88.
Mr. Mohn, together with his wife, helped steer the company into a wide array of publishing - including the acquisition of US-based Random House - music, and other ventures.
He spent some 45 years with the company and most recently served as honorary chairman of its supervisory board.
“Bertelsmann mourns the loss of one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our age,’’ Bertelsmann chief executive Hartmut Ostrowski said in a statement.
Born in Guetersloh in 1921, Mr. Mohn took over his family’s printing and publishing business, C. Bertelsmann Verlag, in 1947.
He expanded the operation by embracing sales representatives and catalogs, and the company grew to incorporate magazine publishing, television broadcasting, and other avenues.
In 1971, he helped oversee the family-owned company’s transformation into a stock corporation and became chairman and chief executive. In 1977, he established the Bertelsmann Stiftung foundation.
He retired from the company in 1981 but remained on Bertelsmann’s supervisory board - the German equivalent to a US board of directors - for a further decade.
Bertelsmann’s assets include book publisher Random House, TV broadcaster RTL, a majority stake in magazine publisher Gruner + Jahr, and the Direct Group book and media clubs.
Bertelsmann at one point held a 50 percent stake in the music company
Though the company is headquartered in Germany, Bertelsmann’s 106,000 employees are scattered across its divisions in more than 50 countries.
The company is a privately held stock corporation owned by the Mohn family with 23.1 percent and the Bertelsmann Foundation with 76.9 percent.
Mr. Mohn leaves his wife, Liz, and six children.
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