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CMS advises founders of Media Partisans on sale of majority stake to Funke media group

26/10/2016

Berlin – The Funke media group has acquired a majority interest in Media Partisans. The Potsdam-based company operates the heftig.co portal in Germany, as well as other websites, and is the European market leader for publishing on social media. The two Media Partisans founders, Michael Glöß and Peter Schilling, retain a significant stake in the business and will continue to manage its operations. The purchase price was not disclosed.

CMS's Berlin-based technology team headed by partners Dr Jörg Zätzsch, Jesko Nobiling and Dr Ole Jani advised the Media Partisans founders on all legal aspects of the transaction. The CMS team is familiar with the Funke media group as a buyer. Funke previously acquired the Absolventa job portal in 2015, a transaction in which CMS likewise advised the sellers.

In 2014, Media Partisans achieved major growth with its highly successful social news portal heftig.co. Further theme-based portals followed in 2015, with websites for lifehacks, health & beauty tips and food (2016) together with worldwide distribution in ten languages, including English, French and Portuguese. In 2016, the firm entered the social video publishing market. At its Potsdam offices, 63 permanent employees now create text and video content for a global audience stretching from Brazil to Japan. The publishing house attracts 73 million people each month to its websites via a Facebook fan base of more than 30 million, while generating 3.1 billion video views per quarter on Facebook. Media Partisans is the leading social video publisher in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

By acquiring this stake in Media Partisans, the Funke media group is continuing its digital expansion and forging ahead with its two-pillar strategy, comprising systematic transformation of the core journalism business and the development of new business areas. The media group's focus is on two areas: regional media, and women's magazines and TV guides. In recent months, Funke has launched new news portals in Berlin, Lower Saxony and Thuringia (berlinlive.de, news38.de and thueringen24.de) and acquired stakes in two specialists for B2B digitisation solutions (Shore GmbH and WinLocal GmbH).

CMS Hasche Sigle

Dr Jörg Zätzsch, Lead Partner, Corporate
Jesko Nobiling, Partner, Tax/Corporate
Dr Ole Jani, Partner
Michael Strubel, Associate, both Intellectual Property
Dr Rolf Hempel, Partner, Competition & EU

Press Contact
presse@cms-hs.com

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Press Release Media Partisans, 26/10/2016
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