Bertelsmann boss Thomas Rabe fails with two merger plans

Thomas Rabe

The Bertelsmann boss has to cope with two failed mergers.

(Photo: dpa)

Dusseldorf Bertelsmann boss Thomas Rabe has to accept two setbacks within a few days. The central component of his strategy is to make subsidiaries of the Gütersloh media giant more powerful with the help of mergers. He has not succeeded in doing this either with the call center holding Majorel or with the French RTL subsidiary.

On Monday evening, a multi-billion dollar merger in the call center industry collapsed. The owners of the Luxembourg Majorel, above all Bertelsmann, have broken off talks about a merger with French competitor Sitel, which is twice as large. Both companies manage the relationships between companies and their end customers. These can be classic call center functions.

Apparently there were disputes with the owners of Sitel, the French billionaire family Mulliez. Despite all efforts, “in view of the overall economic situation, it was not possible to agree on the structure” of the merger, which would cost around 8.7 billion euros. The basic features of a takeover had already been agreed in June.

RTL: Fusion in France canceled

The Bertelsmann subsidiary RTL failed with its merger plans on Friday. There the two big TV groups TF1 and M6 wanted to merge. The RTL Group holds almost half of the shares of M6, TF1 belongs to the French conglomerate Bouygues.

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Both companies halted their plans after competition inspectors raised concerns. The cartel guards would probably only have given the go-ahead if the main channel TF1 or M6 had been sold.

As a result, Bertelsmann will not be able to implement its plan in France, which the family business is also pursuing in other countries: to create strong video companies that have something to counter international streaming competition such as Netflix and Amazon in the respective country.

With the failure in France, further speculation about RTL getting closer to Pro Sieben Sat 1 should be superfluous for the time being. “If France should not be approved, then of course that would not be a good omen for Germany,” Rabe recently said.

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