Bertelsmann AG
Bertelsmann Names Former C.E.O. Thielen Chairman of Supervisory Board
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This past January, Gunter Thielen wrapped up his six year tenure as C.E.O. of Bertelsmann AG, the German corporation that owns the largest American publishing operation, Random House Inc.; today the Bookseller reports that Thielen has been named chairman of the company’s supervisory board.
Bertelsmann was most recently in the news when a German magazine reported (without citing sources) that it had offered Rupert Murdoch a billion dollars for HarperCollins, the book publishing arm of News Corp. read more »
Thursday: Millions for Times Square, The Met, and Aspen; Not the Hamptons
The Prince has left the Aspen
- For starry-eyed, semi-impoverished young New York creative types, a cheap Harlem "dorm" run by a utopian semi-landlord is the obvious housing solution. But does such a happy homeland for "the overeducated and underpaid" really exist? The Times' cover story omits an address, so maybe we'll never know. (The New York Times)
- Times Square Name Game: Will the former Bertelsmann Building--1540 Broadway--be renamed after Equity Office Properties Trust? One hopes not, though Equity, "the nation's largest publicly traded office building owner and manager," has bought up the offices of pointy 1540 B-way for $525 M., a bit more than the price the group paid last year for Sixth Avenue's Verizon Building. The company, says Crain's, "has been on a tear." (Crain's)
- Toasty weather has helped the Hamptons avoid a bad rental season, though ocean-front real estate is still available for August vacationers who have entirely lost touch with reality. And up north in equally horrifying Cape Cod, rental prices are being cut as much as 25 percent. (WSJ/Real Estate Journal)
- The Metropolitan Opera will finally become elegant: Marie Schwartz has given The Met $1 million to fund a contemporary art gallery in its Lincoln Center lobby. The gallery, curated by Vogue's Dodie Kazanjian, will open elegantly on September 22. (Crain's)
- Yet it would take 135 times the amount of Ms. Schwartz's gift to buy the Aspen abode of former Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz (above). The asking price of the 56,000-square-foot shack (bigger than the White House, and maybe as powerful) surpasses Trump's $125m tag for his Palm Beach estate. If the Aspen home is purchased at $135m, the lucky Prince will dwarf Ron Perelman's $70m sales record. (Aspen Times, via CNN/Money) - Max Abelson read more »
Big Boff at Frankfurt Hof
Every year, New York's publishing world issues a collective complaint about the zoo-like nature of read more »
Big Boff at Frankfurt Hof
Every year, New York's publishing world issues a collective complaint about the zoo-like nature of t read more »
Random House Homeless! Office Space Vanishes!
If you were wondering what might send the world's third-largest media conglomerate into a swivet, lo read more »
Sonny Mehta, Uneasy King of Knopf
Ten weeks out of an intensive care unit, Sonny Mehta could be found in Bemel-mans Bar at the Carlyle read more »
Snitcher in the Rye: Salinger's Daughter to Publish a Memoir
Its arrival has been as secretive as that time Holden hid in Phoebe's closet. read more »
Federal Antitrust Official Has Some Nice Bertelsmann Birthday Cake
Judging by the turnout for his 46th-birthday party, Bertelsmann A.G.'s chief executive, Thomas Midde read more »
F.S.G. Rides Tom Wolfe Like a Rented Mule
When Tom Wolfe took the microphone in the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago on Friday, Ma read more »
Our Ken Starr Cares About Books, Even If the Antitrust Guys Don't
In the same week that S.I. Newhouse Jr. read more »
So Why Did Newhouse Sell Random House to Bertelsmann Boys?
After four months of clandestine negotiations, Bertelsmann A.G., the German media giant, closed the read more »
