Berliner Verlag admitted as shareholder of dpa

Berliner Verlag will become a new shareholder in the dpa news agency. The dpa supervisory board unanimously approved this decision on Monday in Hamburg. Berliner Verlag, which publishes the Berliner Zeitung, the Berliner Kurier, and the Weltbühne, among others, will take over a portion of the shares returned to dpa by departing shareholders. Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH has approximately 170 shareholders. Each shareholder can generally acquire up to 1.5 percent of the share capital. According to dpa, this limit guarantees "the independence of dpa from potential individual interests."

Daniel Schöningh, Chairman of the Supervisory Board, commented on the inclusion of Berliner Verlag: "dpa is delighted to welcome Berliner Verlag as a new shareholder. Berliner Verlag is a long-standing customer of dpa, which receives the basic service. Against this background, the company's desire to become a shareholder is understandable." Holger Friedrich, Publisher and Managing Director of Berliner Verlag, said: "I am very pleased that the dpa Supervisory Board has unanimously decided to admit us to its circle of shareholders. We will contribute our transformational experience and East German perspective to the best of our ability to support dpa in its important, societal mission."

Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH is a joint venture of German media and has approximately 170 shareholders. The admission of shareholders is regulated in the articles of association. Paragraph 4 clarifies: "Shareholders can only be media companies. Such shareholders include, in particular, publishers, publishing and broadcasting companies, as well as companies whose business activities include the predominantly independent creation and distribution of journalistic content." A resolution by the supervisory board is required for the transfer of shares.

According to Schöningh, dpa sees itself as a "non-partisan news organization committed to journalistic independence." Its broad shareholder base reflects "the pluralistic media spectrum in Germany and forms the basis for the agency's content and economic independence, which is enshrined in its statutes."

dpa's goal is for all media outlets that report daily to be subscribers to the basic service. The "joint venture" principle means "that media customers should also be co-owners of dpa, if possible."