Bertelsmann — Net Worth and Career Earnings
Bertelsmann generated approximately $21 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2024, making it Europe's largest media company and one of the oldest media organisations in the world — founded in Gütersloh, Germany in 1835 as a Protestant publishing house. The company remains privately held by the Mohn family, making it unusual among major media companies that have not pursued public market funding.
Bertelsmann's two most valuable assets are Penguin Random House — the world's largest book publisher, which publishes authors including Barack Obama, James Patterson and countless others — and RTL Group, which operates 68 television channels across Europe making it the continent's largest commercial broadcasting group. A US Department of Justice lawsuit blocked Penguin Random House's proposed acquisition of Simon & Schuster in 2022, maintaining the competitive balance in publishing that regulators argued would be threatened by the combination.