Ströer is Germany’s largest digital marketer based on reach: successful closing of t-online.de and InteractiveMedia acquisitions

Today Ströer closed on the acquisitions of Germany’s online portal with the widest reach, t-online.de, and the biggest German digital marketer, InteractiveMedia (as ranked by AGOF “Digital Facts” in both cases). The transaction takes the form of a capital increase at Ströer in return for the non-cash contribution of the two companies. Upon the successful closing, Deutsche Telekom AG will become a shareholder of Ströer and now holds some 6.41 million shares, or 11.599% of Ströer’s increased capital stock.

The Cologne-based media company raises its expectations for revenue contributions of both new acquisitions from more than EUR 100m in 2015 to more than EUR 120m to consolidated revenue in 2016 after revenue synergies. Once fully integrated, an EBITDA contribution of some EUR 50m after synergies is anticipated (so far: EUR 35m before synergies). For 2016, an EBITDA contribution of EUR 45m is forecast. The acquisition will increase earnings by share from the start, with Ströer expecting earnings per share to increase by at least 10% (so far: at least 5%) in 2016. The acquisition also significantly improves Ströer’s finance profile, with the equity ratio increasing by some 30% to around 45%.

Deutsche Telekom AG and Ströer elicit possibilities for future projects in various areas, for example in the field of technical infrastructure. Furthermore, Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners has agreed to establish a Series A Venture Capital Fund in collaboration with Ströer and Falk Technologies (subject to approval by the German Federal Cartel Office), which is also open to other partners.

“The transaction marks the beginning of a new era for our company. Both businesses make an excellent complement to our portfolio, they take us to a new level as a group and significantly stoke even further customer interest in our products and communication solutions,” says Udo Müller, CEO of Ströer SE. “Thanks to the experience we have gained in the consolidation of the out-of-home advertising market in Germany, we are able to integrate our digital acquisitions quickly and efficiently and leverage synergies across the entire value chain. We are expecting an additional contribution of EUR 25m to free cash flow from this transaction.”

With the acquisition of Germany’s biggest digital marketer, InteractiveMedia, Ströer is ideally supplementing its own online advertising business housed within Ströer Digital Group and strengthening its current position in the German online advertising market for the long term. The merger will create a digital marketing giant, which will set new standards in Germany in terms of inventory quality, reach and technical infrastructure. The merger is also a milestone for Ströer in the ongoing establishment of its own data management platform and another important step towards systematically focusing on business models driven by big data.

At the same time, Germany’s largest online portal in terms of reach, t-online.de, also ideally complements the Ströer Content Group. In this area, Ströer is anticipating sustained growth — not least based on the systematic focus of the Ströer Content Group on performance and quality. With its own portals and networks, Ströer currently reaches more than 34 million unique users, generates more than 4.5 billion page impressions and well over 650 million video views. The current portfolio includes leading special interest websites such as GIGA, Spieletipps and kino.de, the high-reach multi-channel network TubeOne and the leading content and technology specialist Content Fleet.

With the acquisition of InteractiveMedia, Ströer (not including OMS) is the clear number one in terms of reach on the German market (according to AGOF) with some 42.82 million* internet users. The internet portal in Germany with the widest reach, t-online.de, which was taken over by Ströer, has also considerably extended its overall number one position in the rankings (according to AGOF) with over 31 million unique users at present.

*Following the merger of offerings of Ströer Digital and InteractiveMedia, marketing survey results extrapolated based on the current AGOF ranking “Digital Facts” 07/2015

	Vermarkter	Unique User (Mio.)	Reichweite (%)
1	Ströer Digital*	42,82	81,0
2	United Internet Media	35,57	67,3
3	Axel Springer Media Impact	34,99	66,2
4	SevenOne Media	34,28	64,9
5	ForwardAdGroup	33,65	63,7
6	IP Deutschland	28,38	53,7
7	OMS	28,02	53,0
8	G+J e|MS	26,61	50,3
9	eBay Advertising Group Deutschland	24,36	46,1
10	iq digital	20,39	38,6

*Ströer Digital inklusive InteractiveMedia CCSP

	Webseiten	Unique User (Mio.)	Reichweite (%)
1	T-Online	31,01	58,7
2	eBay.de	20,22	38,3
3	gutefrage.net	20,08	38,0
4	Wetter.com	18,76	35,5
5	BILD	18,57	35,1
6	WEB.de	18,47	34,9
7	FOCUS Online	17,87	33,8
8	SPIEGEL ONLINE	16,42	31,1
9	CHIP	15,72	29,7
10	GMX	15,03	28,4