KKR acquires Tele-Munich Group

Frank­furt a. M. / Munich — The US private equity inves­tor KKR is taking over Tele München Gruppe (TMG). Accor­din­gly, the US finan­cial inves­tor is buying TMG from the well-known media entre­pre­neur Herbert Kloi­ber, who owned the company for 42 years. Follo­wing appr­oval by the anti­trust autho­ri­ties, the deal is expec­ted to be comple­ted in April. TMG was advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by Wirsing Hass Zoller (Legal), and Klee­berg & Part­ner (Tax).

KKR made the invest­ment from Euro­pean Fund IV. A KKR spokes­man did not want to comment on the purchase price or other tran­sac­tion details in response to a FINANCE inquiry. Accor­ding to the company’s own figu­res, TMG most recently gene­ra­ted total opera­ting perfor­mance of 520 million euros with around 1,800 employees. Foun­ded in 1977, the Group produ­ces films, trades in broad­cas­ting licen­ses and holds stakes in TV stati­ons RTL II and Tele 5, among others.

There will be chan­ges in the manage­ment of TMG as a result of the take­over by KKR. Thus, the new owner makes the former CEO of Constan­tin Medien, Fred Kogel, the new Mana­ging Direc­tor. Accor­ding to a press release from TMG, howe­ver, Kloi­ber junior will also remain the mana­ging direc­tor of the “core compa­nies”. Herbert G. Kloi­ber is to serve as a member of an advi­sory board, and will also remain a member of the Super­vi­sory Board of Odeon Film AG until the upco­ming Annual Gene­ral Meeting. As always with such deals, the sale still has to be appro­ved by the autho­ri­ties. The two parties did not provide any infor­ma­tion on the purchase price.

He headed Tele München Gruppe for 42 years, and now Herbert G. Kloi­ber is selling the group to finan­cial inves­tor KKR. This move also has impli­ca­ti­ons for some German broad­cas­ters and produc­tion compa­nies. For exam­ple, TMG holds 31.5 percent of RTL II toge­ther with Disney, while Tele 5 is wholly owned by the Group. TMG also holds a majo­rity stake in Odeon Film AG, while other subsi­dia­ries such as Concorde Film­ver­leih GmbH, Concorde Home Enter­tain­ment GmbH, Clas­art Film- und Fern­seh­pro­duk­ti­ons GmbH and Tele München Inter­na­tio­nal GmbH now also have a new owner.

KKR now wants to make Tele München Gruppe the leading inde­pen­dent plat­form for audio­vi­sual content in Germany and a central point of cont­act for crea­tive talent. The German market offers an “attrac­tive envi­ron­ment to further deve­lop TMG as an inde­pen­dent, market-leading plat­form and to repo­si­tion it in times of digi­tal disrup­tion,” the private equity firm says. As consu­mer demand for high-quality, local but also inter­na­tio­nal content grows, so does the need for “a large inde­pen­dent German content platform.”

“TMG is an attrac­tive middle-market asset and defi­ni­tely fits KKR’s middle-market stra­tegy,” the spokesper­son said. About a year ago, KKR also opened an office in Germany with Chris­tian Ollig (photo) as head. The deal was execu­ted jointly from the London and Frank­furt offices, accor­ding to the spokesper­son. Phil­ipp Freise was respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion. The long-time KKR mana­ger specia­li­zes in invest­ments in the media sector.

Advi­sors TMG: Wirsing Hass Zoller (Legal), and Klee­berg & Part­ner (Tax)