Press Release | Frankfurt/Main, 10/24/2013

Bertelsmann's M&A Lawyers Win JUVE Award

• Successfully managed legal aspects of major transactions carried out as part of the Group’s corporate strategy

The Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) experts in the Corporate Legal department at the international media company Bertelsmann have been honored by the trade publisher JUVE as the year’s "Best In-house M&A Team." The award was presented to the team of corporate lawyers led by the outgoing General Counsel Ulrich Koch and his designated successor, Thomas Götz, on Wednesday at the Alte Oper Frankfurt.

The jury presented the JUVE award to Bertelsmann’s corporate lawyers in recognition of their professional handling of the Group's strategic realignment initiated by Bertelsmann Chairman & CEO Thomas Rabe. For instance, they negotiated the combination of Bertelsmann’s book publishing group Random House with the Penguin Group into the new global industry leader, Penguin Random House. The merger was negotiated in a very short time beginning at the end of 2012, guided through antitrust review in numerous countries, where it was approved without conditions, and was successfully concluded on July 1, 2013. Other major transactions requiring legal management this year included Bertelsmann’s acquisition of full ownership in the music rights company BMG, the IPO of RTL Group in Frankfurt/Main, and the acquisition of the Gothia Financial Group by Bertelsmann's media services provider Arvato.

Bertelsmann's Corporate Legal department has seventeen lawyers; it is led by Ulrich Koch, who is leaving Bertelsmann at the end of the year as scheduled, after 20 successful years. Thomas Götz (42), currently Co-Head of Mergers & Acquisitions at Bertelsmann, will succeed him in January.

About Bertelsmann
Bertelsmann is an international media company whose core divisions encompass television (RTL Group), book publishing (Penguin Random House), magazine publishing (Gruner + Jahr), services (Arvato), and printing (Be Printers) in some 50 countries. In 2012, the company’s businesses, with their more than 100,000 employees, generated revenues of €16.1 billion. Bertelsmann stands for a combination of creativity and entrepreneurship that empowers the creation of first-rate media, communications, and service offerings to inspire people around the world and to provide innovative solutions for customers.