The corporate headquarters of Axel Springer Verlag in Berlin, Germany.
Sean Gallup | Getty Images
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 initial reports put it at around $ 1 billion.
Speakers from Axel Springer and Politico were initially not available to comment on the assessment.
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.
Axel Springer was reportedly in talks earlier this summer to buy Politico’s rival Axios.
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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