How Boss Rabe’s big merger plans fail

Munich, Guetersloh Lights off, spot on. When Thomas Rabe, 57, who has a doctorate in business administration, appears at the Bertelsmann Management Conference in the Gütersloh City Theater, they celebrate him like a pop star. The CEO of the local media company, a slender ascetic, hardened by the service as a long-distance runner, stands on the stage in the cone of light of the darkened muse site – and 500 executives from all over the world applaud. More than 60 seconds standing ovation. This is what participants then tell the Handelsblatt.

Those present know only too well that the well-trained man before them, the King of Gütersloh, deserves homage. He introduced a new East Westphalian absolutism à la: L’état, c’est moi, here: I am the group.

As CEO of Bertelsmann and the most important subsidiary RTL Group and recently also of RTL Germany, Rabe is three times head of a group that also includes the world’s largest book group Penguin Random House, the fourth largest music company BMG and the service provider Arvato.