VSS looking for more buys in German and Austrian media

Posted by Anna-Maria Mende on March 15, 2006 at 10:48 PM

Johannes von Bismarck, manager of U.S. private equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson (VSS) said yesterday in Frankfurt that VSS is looking for more media companies in Austria and Germany and is in talks with several parties, reports Reuters. VSS, which recently, together with David Montgomery and his investment vehicle Mecom, bought the publisher Berliner Verlag and the tabloid Hamburger Morgenpost in Germany (see former posting), is looking for newspapers, radio stations and publishers. However, no names were announced yet.

Von Bismarck said that VSS is for example interested in the German regional newspaper Sächsische Zeitung. But he also said that DDVG, a media holding that belongs to the German Social Democratic Party SPD and one of the two partners that own the paper, would not sell the paper to finance investors. (The holding said the same for the sale of the Frankfurter Rundschau (see previous posting). However, VSS does not seem interested in the Frankfurter Rundschau anyway.

Von Bismarck also said that the BV Zeitungsholding, the joint investment vehicle of VSS and Mecom, is under no pressure to buy immediately, but that it would be nice to "get something this year."

Sources: Reuters, Der Standard (in German), Berliner Zeitung (in German, through IFRA-Newsletter)

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