Bertelsmann Stiftung

About Bertelsmann Stiftung

The Bertelsmann Stiftung is a non-profit foundation under private law in Gütersloh and the largest single holder of the capital of the media group Bertelsmann. Its statutes describe it as a foundation with legal capacity within the meaning of Section 1 of the North Rhine-Westphalia Foundations Act, with its registered office in Gütersloh and Reinhard Mohn as its founder, and state that its assets consist mainly of the initial endowment and of the shares in Johannes Mohn GmbH, the majority shareholder in terms of ownership of Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA.^[1] It pursues non-profit purposes in education, economic and social affairs, health and international understanding.^[1]

Reinhard Mohn founded the Bertelsmann Stiftung on 8 February 1977 with an endowment of 100,000 Deutsche Marks; the authorities approved it on 14 March 1977, and since 1993, when Mohn transferred a large part of his capital share to it, it has held the majority of Bertelsmann's capital shares. Together with the Reinhard Mohn Stiftung and the BVG Stiftung it holds 80.9 percent of that capital and it has no voting rights.^[2] Bertelsmann's own shareholder statement lists a fourth foundation, the BVG-Familienstiftung, in that 80.9 percent.^[3] GLEIF records the foundation as an active Stiftung des privaten Rechts at Carl-Bertelsmann-Straße 256 in Gütersloh with an entity creation date of 14 March 1977.^[4] No company stands above it: GLEIF carries a direct parent reporting exception for the foundation with the reason that there is no known person, and a foundation of this legal form has no shareholders.^[5]