Buyback of Groupe Bruxelles Lambert’s Stake in Bertelsmann AG Finalized

Bertelsmann AG today finalized its buyback of Groupe Bruxelles Lambert’s (GBL) 25.1 percent stake in Bertelsmann AG as agreed at the end of May 2006. The international media company announced today, Tuesday, that the transaction was completed with the transferal of the purchase price of €4.5 billion. GBL’s representatives on the Bertelsmann AG Supervisory Board, André Desmarais and Gilles Samyn, have left the board.

The shares bought back will revert to Bertelsmann AG, resulting in the following shareholder structure: The Bertelsmann Stiftung now holds 76.9 percent of the capital shares; the remaining 23.1 percent are owned by the Mohn family. The Bertelsmann Verwaltungsgesellschaft (BVG) controls 100 percent of the voting rights.

As announced earlier, Bertelsmann is financing the share buyback with a €4.5 billion bridge loan in two tranches. The banks mandated with arranging the loan will start the syndication of a €2.5 billion tranche with a maturity of three years to a group of Bertelsmann’s core banks shortly.

The loan will be significantly repaid over the next 12 to 18 months by retained cash flows from operations as well as by expected proceeds from the planned divestiture of BMG Music Publishing.

For further questions, please contact:

Andreas Grafemeyer

Senior Vice President Media Relations

Phone: +49 – 5241 – 80 24 66

andreas.grafemeyer@bertelsmann.de

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Vollzug_Rueckkauf_e.pdf	75 kB