The corporate headquarters of Axel Springer Verlag in Berlin, Germany.
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The German publisher Axel Springer announced on Thursday that it plans to acquire the digital media site Politico. The companies did not disclose a price for the deal, but a person familiar with the matter said Politico sold for about $ 1 billion.
The spokesmen for Axel Springer and Politico did not respond to a request for an opinion on the evaluation of the deal.
The takeover will further expand the portfolio of the publishing group in the USA and expand the stake in Insider and Morning Brew. Axel Springer is the German publishing giant behind major news agencies such as Bild and Die Welt im Land. It was recently privately held and continues to invest in US digital media companies.
Axel Springer and Politico have been in a joint venture partnership since 2014, when Politico Europe was launched, according to a press release. This news site has been profitable since 2019, according to the announcement.
At the beginning of the summer, Axel Springer was in talks to buy Politico’s rival Axios. But Axel Springer is no longer in talks to buy Axios after making a deal with Politico, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Politico’s founder and editor, Robert Allbritton, will retain that role for both Politico and the sibling tech site Protocol, according to the press release. The companies announced that their editorial and management leadership teams would stay with Protocol and in the US and Europe with Politico and operate the publications independently of Axel Springer’s other US brands.
The companies expect the deal to close in the fourth quarter of this year.
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