Bundeskartellamt clears takeover of Delius Klasing by Klambt

The Bundeskartellamt has cleared plans by Medienholding Klambt GmbH & Co. KG to acquire all shares in Delius Klasing Verlag GmbH in the first phase of merger control.

Mediengruppe Klambt is active in the areas of magazines, periodicals, radio and the distribution of print media and provides various digital offers. In particular, the company publishes women’s magazines, leisure magazines and TV programme guides. Delius Klasing mainly publishes magazines, books and new media focusing on the topics water sports, cycling, sports and automobiles.

Andreas Mundt, President of the Bundeskartellamt: “While Klambt’s magazines belong to the popular magazines segment, the titles published by Delius Klasing belong to the special-interest magazines segment, in particular concerning water sports and cycling. Therefore, the takeover does not result in any market share additions and consequently does not impede competition on the reader and advertising markets.”

In 2021 Klambt already acquired shares in the national distributor Moderner Zeitschriften-Vertrieb GmbH & Co. KG (MVZ), in which Burda and Funke also hold an interest (see press release of 1 September 2021). At the vertical level, the project in question did not raise any competition concerns despite this participation, as Delius Klasing has so far largely distributed its titles itself and therefore no demand for distribution services is removed from the market.