Startup Exit XING 147 million €
keep goin, lars
Burda Media told the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) that they, along with their daughter company Burda Digital, took over 9,5% of the Xing shares. With this, Burda has gained around 38.9% of the Xing shares, paying €40.44 per share.
The complete takeover of Xing would cost Burda Digital over €147.3 million.
According to Burda, this is a markup of 16.7% on the evaluated market price from the past three months. Holger Eckstein, CFO of Hubert Burda Media, says “With 44 euros per share, we are offering an attractive price to the current share holders that is significantly over the market price of the past three months. As we are not planning on taking the company off the stockmarket, we are happy with every shareholder that chooses to stay investing in Xing AG with us.”
Through the takeover of Xing, Burda is investing more in the digital market, which is an area of growth and profit, especially when compared to Burda’s core market of traditional print publishing. Through Burda Digital Ventures the media corporation has holdings in companies such as GameDuell, Zooplus and is also the main shareholder in Tomorrow Focus AG.
Through this deal, Xing will be situated in the vocational and business sectors, which is complementary to online recruiting and job placement. Burda also offers Xing other benefits: with its 311 magazines globally, 82 of which are published in Germany, Burda counts as Germany’s largest publishing house. Along to their head office in Offenburg, Burda also has branches in Munich, Hamburg and Berlin.
€44 per Xing share, not bad.