Bastei Lübbe AG: Bastei Lübbe acquiring beam-ebooks.de shop platform

Bastei Lübbe acquiring beam-ebooks.de shop platform

Cologne, 8 September 2014. Bastei Lübbe AG (ISIN DE000A1X3YY0) is further expanding its digital activities through the acquisition of the successful online shop platform beam-ebooks.de. The 100% stake in the web platform, which specialises in eBooks, is intended to strengthen and broaden the Cologne-based media corporation's portfolio in the area of new media. "The acquisition of beam-ebooks.de is another important step in our digital strategy", declares Bastei Lübbe CEO Thomas Schierack.

beam-ebooks.de has shown strong growth in the past ten years. The platform currently offers 230,000 titles to its more than 400,000 customers. The company is attractive to Bastei Lübbe in several regards: "Managing Director Christoph Kaufmann established beam-ebooks.de as a shop strongly oriented toward quality and serving the needs of its paying customers, the readers. This aligns perfectly with Bastei Lübbe's corporate philosophy", says Jörg Plathner, the executive at Bastei Lübbe responsible for digital business. beam's strong serial book collection is also an attractive supplement to both the portfolio and 'Own-IP strategy' at Bastei Lübbe. The two companies have been business partners for a long time: "Bastei Lübbe and our self-publishing platform BookRix have been working successfully with beam for many years - with each benefiting from beam's outstanding service", Plathner notes.

The guiding principle at beam, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, will remain in place following the takeover. "beam will stay beam", Plathner promises. Current customers can continue to look forward to the familiar broad range of offerings and perfect service. "We will continue to make targeted improvements to beam-ebooks.de to carry on its role as the best eBook shop for book fans", Plathner reports.

The platform's extraordinary service and strong degree of customer-friendliness are reflected in its Trusted Shops rating, where the platform has earned an average of 4.89 of 5 possible stars. All eBooks at beam are available in the cloud at any time, in the ePub, PDF and Mobipocket formats. This allows the platform's products to be read on all reading devices, from PCs and Macs to smartphones and Amazon's Kindle. beam has also made the decision to forego rigid DRM protections. Shop customers can pay by direct debit, credit card, bank transfer, Paypal or even in cash.

The acquisition will become official on 01. September 2014. The sides have agreed not to disclose any information about the purchase price.

Contact for Bastei Lübbe AG:
Barbara Fischer
Director of PR and
Event Marketing
Tel.: 0221 / 82 00 28 50
Email: barbara.fischer@luebbe.de

About Bastei Lübbe AG:
Bastei Lübbe AG is a media company organised around its publishing venture. The Cologne-based company currently has around 335 employees. It publishes books, audio books, ebooks and digital products in both the literary and popular science genres, as well as serialised novels and puzzle magazines. Bastei Lübbe is also actively involved in brand licensing and the development, production and distribution of gift, decoration and merchandising articles. Bastei Lübbe has for many years enjoyed an almost unbroken streak as the market leader in the growing segment of hard-cover literature; in 2013 its literary ebooks division was also ranked number one on the market. 2013 saw the company's 60th anniversary celebration and its launch as a publicly traded company. Shares of Bastei Lübbe AG are listed in the Prime Standard segment of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (WKN A1X3YY, ISIN DE000A1X3YY0).