Welt am Sonntag
Welt am Sonntag (WamS) is a national German Sunday newspaper that was first published on August 1, 1948. It has been part of Axel Springer SE since 1953 and is headquartered in Berlin. The newspaper is known for its journalistic expertise and regularly features investigative stories on business and politics. It has a paid circulation of 350,924 copies and reaches around 0.86 million readers per issue. Welt am Sonntag has editorial offices in Berlin, Hamburg, North Rhine-Westphalia and an editorial office in Frankfurt am Main. The newspaper has been published in two editions since September 2021: The early edition on Saturday and an updated edition on Sunday. Sunday delivery was discontinued in summer 2023 as part of the "Digital Only" goal. Since then, the newspaper has only been available at local sales outlets or in digital form.
Audience Share
1.11%
Ownership Type
private
Geographic Coverage
national
Content Type
paid content
Media Companies / Groups
Axel Springer
Ownership Structure
48.5% of Axel Springer is owned by the investment company Traviata B.V., which is owned 73.4% by KKR and 26.6% by the Canadian pension fund CPPIB. This puts KKR's stake in Axel Springer at 35.6% and CPPIB's at 12.9%.
37.5% is owned by Axel Springer Gesellschaft für Publizistik GmbH & Co. KG, 60% of which is owned by Friede Springer and 40% by CEO Dr Mathias Döpfner. 5.0% is held by Axel Sven Springer and 1% by Ariane Melanie Springer. A further 6.9% is held by Dr Mathias Döpfner via MD Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH (4.1%) and Brilliant 310. GmbH (0.9%) and directly (1.9%). The remaining 1% is held by the Friede Springer Foundation.
This results in an allocation of Axel Springer's shares to 35.6% KKR, 23.5% Friede Springer and Friede Springer Foundation, 21.0% Dr Mathias Döpfner, 12.9% CPPIB, 5% Axel Sven Springer and 1% Ariane Melanie Springer.
Voting Rights
In September 2020, Friede Springer announced that she was donating significant shares in the company to CEO Dr Mathias Döpfner and also transferring the voting rights for her remaining shares to him. This means that Dr Mathias Döpfner can vote 44.4% (excluding Friede Springer Stiftung). The remaining voting rights are likely to correspond to the actual shares in the company: 48.5% KKR and CPPIB, 5% Axel Sven Springer, 1% Ariane Melanie Springer, 1% Friede Springer Foundation, represented by the Executive Board Dr Friede Springer and Karin Arnold.
Individual Owner
Group / Individual Owner
KKR
KKR is a major shareholder (35.6%) of Axel Springer SE and an American investment company that holds investments in various business areas. In addition to the media sector, these include fin-tech companies, property companies, medical and other healthcare companies and energy companies. KKR is one of the largest investors in fossil fuels.
CPPIB
CPPIB (Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board) is a pension fund that manages and invests the pension contributions of Canadian contributors. In Europe, CPPIB invests around 96 billion Canadian dollars, primarily in the areas of real estate, infrastructure, public equities, property funds and direct investments. CPPIB is a shareholder in the holding company Traviata, which owns 48.5% of Axel Springer SE. This means that 12.9% of Axel Springer belongs to CPPIB.
General Information
Founding Year
1948
Affiliated Interests Founder
studied history, economics, philosophy and journalism in Münster, Freiburg im Breisgau and at the Hochschule für Politik in Berlin. As a journalist and social democrat, he was one of the founders of the resistance group Roter Stoßtrupp against National Socialism in 1933. After his liberation from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945, he became the first editor-in-chief of the newspaper Die Welt in 1946. He was recommended by Derrick Sington, who had worked as a British control officer at Die Welt. He succeeded Hans Zehrer, who was burdened by his past in the Third Reich and had to give up his post shortly before the publication of the first issue. In 1950, Küstermeier, who was suffering from the consequences of his imprisonment, resigned after the newspaper suffered a considerable drop in circulation and internal disagreements arose. He died in Tel Aviv in 1977.
Affiliated Interests Ceo
became CEO of the Bild and Welt Group at Axel Springer in 2021. He was previously COO of Insider Inc, a subsidiary of Axel Springer in the USA, which publishes Business Insider, among others. He is still a member of the Board of Directors at Insider. He joined Axel Springer in 2013 as a Junior Executive and Board Advisor. Prior to that, he was a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group. In 2016, he moved to the USA to help manage Axel Springer's investment portfolio there. In fall 2017, he joined Insider Inc. as Head of Subscriptions, where he became COO in 2020.
CEO of Bonial and since the beginning of 2023 also the Co-Managing Director of Bild and Media Impact. He began his career as a trainee at Axel Springer and later worked at Media Impact. After a brief stint at ImmoScout24, he returned to Axel Springer in 2019 as Managing Director of Bonial. Together with Claudius Senst and Julia Wehrle (Managing Director of Media Impact), Eck-Schmidt is responsible for the regional and national marketing of Bild and Media Impact.
CEO of the Welt Group and Managing Director of Axel Springer Deutschland GmbH, which publishes Bild as well as Welt.
Affiliated Interests Editor-In-Chief
studied history and political science at the Free University of Berlin. From 1987 to 1996, he worked at the FU Berlin's Chair for Contemporary History and International Relations, where he received his doctorate in 1996. Since 1998, Schuster has been an editor at Die Welt newspaper, where he headed the foreign policy department from 2000 to 2007. He succeeded Dagmar Rosenfeld as editor-in-chief of Welt am Sonntag in May 2024.
studied journalism at the University of Munich and the German School of Journalism as well as philosophy at the Munich School of Philosophy. He received his doctorate from Humboldt University in Berlin in 1995. From 1996 to 2000, he was editor-in-chief of the magazine of the Süddeutsche Zeitung. From 2005 to 2008, he was the founding editor-in-chief of the German edition of Vanity Fair, which was first published in February 2007. Poschardt has published several books, including "DJ Culture" and "911," a book about the Porsche 911. He has been editor-in-chief of WeltN24 since 2016.
Affiliated Interests other important people
began his journalistic career at the left-wing consumer magazine konkret. From 1994 to 2008, he was editor-in-chief of the news magazine Der Spiegel. Aust has been publisher of the daily newspaper Die Welt since 2014 and was also its editor-in-chief until September 2016. He has also been editor-in-chief of the WeltN24 Group since January 1, 2016. Aust has published numerous books on mainly political topics, including the non-fiction book "Der Baader-Meinhof-Komplex".
Contact
Axel Springer Deutschland GmbH
Axel-Springer-Straße 65
10888 Berlin
Financial Information
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Further Information
Headlines
Meta Data
Audience share according to agma/ma press media
The average exchange rate from the year of publication of the source was used for the conversions from euros to US dollars (2020: EUR 1 = USD 1.09556).
Specific financial information relating exclusively to this media outlet is not available. This data is included in the consolidated financial statements of Axel Springer SE.
