Why keeping it in the family is not working for Bertelsmann

From Leona Lewis’s Spirit to Dan Brown’s Angels & Demons and Ice Road Truckers on Five, Bertelsmann is the German media company to entertain you. It might be worth £10 billion, something you could confirm if you could find its listing on the stock market – but you can’t, because it is private, remote-controlled in one way or another by the Mohn family. In a week when Bear Stearns turned out to be worth $2 a share and when even Johnston Press’s Blackpool Gazette gets up in the storm, that probably feels like a good place to be. At least it is until you look at Bertelsmann’s results, released this week. (Times Online)