By Klaus Lauer
BERLIN (Reuters) – German media, services and education firm Bertelsmann plans to invest more than 8 billion euros ($8.86 billion) as part of its growth strategy in the five years to 2026, more than previously envisaged, its CEO told Reuters on Wednesday.
The privately owned media group is in the middle of a scheme to boost growth through investments of 5-7 billion euros between 2021 and 2026.
“I expect the programme to run to more than 8 billion euros,” CEO Thomas Rabe told Reuters, adding that so far, it has invested 4.8 billion euros.
“I do not want to have a limit,” he said.
Rabe said there was a wide range of attractive projects to invest in across the group, whose brands include music business BMG and book publisher Penguin Random House and TV subsidiary RTL.
We have projects in the pipeline across the board,” he said, in the education, digital health and its BI investment arm.
Regionally, the company was looking especially at India, Mexico and Brazil as well as the United States, its largest sales contributor in the first half of this year.
Rabe said he expected the strong developments in the U.S. to continue.
($1 = 0.9025 euros)
(Reporting by Klaus Lauer; Writing by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Miranda Murray)
