The Spiegel Group is a Hamburg-based media group consisting of SPIEGEL-Verlag Rudolf Augstein GmbH & Co. KG and its shareholder and parent company Rudolf Augstein GmbH. In addition to the weekly magazine Der Spiegel and the online portal of the same name Spiegel.de, the Spiegel Group also publishes Manager Magazin, Spiegel TV, Harvard Business Manager and 11 Freunde.
The first issue of Der Spiegel is published in Hanover on 4 January 1947. Over the course of seven decades, Spiegel-Verlag has developed into a multimedia media company whose journalistic offering stands for quality journalism. Today, the Spiegel Group is one of the most renowned media companies in Germany. Its print magazines, TV productions and online offerings are of outstanding importance in the German press landscape. The core of all of the Group's journalistic products is journalistic quality and independent reporting, which contributes significantly to its prominent position in the German media sector.
The Spiegel Group is majority-owned by Mitarbeiter KG, a holding company of Spiegel employees, the Augstein heirs and RM Hamburg Holding GmbH, which is part of the international media group Bertelsmann.
Rudolf Augstein, the founder of SPIEGEL who died in 2002, sold 25 per cent of the shares in 1971 to Gruner + Jahr, which is now part of Bertelsmann. He also transferred half of his company to the employees in 1974. In his will, he also stipulated that his heirs must each sell 0.5 per cent of the shares to the two remaining shareholders and thus lose their blocking minority.
Since then, the majority owner of the Spiegel Group has been KG Beteiligungsgesellschaft für SPIEGEL-Mitarbeiter mbH & Co. This is made up of long-standing Spiegel employees. Together with the other shareholders, they exercise ownership rights and participate in important decisions through their elected representatives - from investments to appointments to management positions. They also receive 50.5 per cent of the profits.
This ownership structure is unique in the European media landscape. Since then, shared responsibility, shared decision-making and a claim to half of the profits have been key elements of working conditions at the Spiegel Group and characterise the corporate culture. This consistent implementation, which turns employees into co-owners, cannot be found anywhere else.