Bertelsmann Receives €1.63 billion from Sale of BMG Music Publishing

Proceeds to Be Used to Pay Down Debt

Bertelsmann AG has confirmed the receipt of approx. €1.63 billion for the proposed sale of BMG Music Publishing to Vivendi. BMG Music Publishing is the world’s third-largest music publisher. Bertelsmann and Vivendi had reached an agreement on the sale of the music publishing business in early September. Bertelsmann continues to work with Vivendi towards obtaining antitrust clearance from the European Commission in Brussels and in certain other jurisdictions, following which the sale will be able to be put into effect. The U.S. antitrust authorities have already approved the sale.

Bertelsmann AG’s Chief Financial Officer Thomas Rabe said: “As announced earlier, we will use the proceeds from the sale to pay down the bridge loan taken out to finance the share buyback. We intend to reach our internal financing targets again by the end of 2007, and are now one big step closer to this goal.” The leverage factor, which expresses the ratio of economic debt to operating result, is to be brought down to near the target value of 2.3 again by the end of next year.

Another element in the financing concept involves two Benchmark Eurobonds with a combined value of €1.5 billion, which were successfully issued in mid-September 2006. The total amount of the loan will also be reduced further over the next 12 months through high liquidity from operations. In mid-2006, Bertelsmann had taken out a €4.5 billion loan as interim funding for its buyback of a 25.1-percent holding of Bertelsmann shares from Groupe Bruxelles Lambert (GBL).

For further questions, please contact:

Andreas Grafemeyer

Senior Vice President Media Relations

Phone: +49 (0) 52 41 / 80 24 66

andreas.grafemeyer@bertelsmann.de

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Verkaufserloes_BMG_MP_e_1.pdf	70 kB