Axel Springer To Buy 88% Stake In Business Insider For $343M

In the most envy-inducing media news of the week, German publishing giant Axel Springer has agreed to shell out 3 million for 88 percent ownership of Henry Blodget’s eight-year-old digital news operation, Business Insider Inc.

Axel Springer said Tuesday it is purchasing 88 per cent of the news site, boosting its stake to about 97 per cent.

The winning bidder is Berlin-based Axel Springer, which had previously owned 9 percent of Business Insider.

Blodget described the deal as a “pleasure and privilege to join forces with such a smart, forward-thinking team2 and added that it was “looking forward to working together to build a major global news organization for the digital century”.

In addition to the offering on businessinsider.com, Business Insider operates other topic-specific news services; internationally, the company is now represented with local editions or licenses in seven other countries besides the US.

It will be operated by finanzen.net, an Axel Springer division.

Axel Springer is one of the largest digital publishing houses in Europe, generating annual revenues of around €3bn and employing 14,000 people.

“By acquiring BI, we’re continuing our digital growth strategy and investing, as we’ve said, in digital journalistic businesses in the Anglo-American space”, Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner said in the statement.

Business Insider plans to introduce a German edition in the fourth quarter. Re/Code is reporting that Axel Springer’s failure to land the FT made it hunger for Business Insider. The BI deal is subject to approval by antitrust regulators. Business Insider publishes a variety of news ranging from items targeted at Millennials through social media to hard news aimed at investors, but it does not publish any print publications.

Business Insider was launched back in 2007 (as Silicon Valley Insider), before rebranding to BI in 2009. Its parent company Eyeo, however, wants to be seen as more than just an ad-blocking firm; Adblock Plus offers an Acceptable Ads initiative: Blocking annoying ads is one thing, but allowing noninstrusive ads through is an attempt to find a compromise between users and advertisers. Axel Springer also has a majority holding in the shopping platform Retale, which has been active in the USA market since 2013 through the Bonial.com Group.