Les Today: This has nothing to do with Les Moonves

$5.8 Billion is the price tag on not going public. This is what the founding and controlling family of German media giant Bertelsmann AG will pay the only outside shareholder Groupe Bruxelles Lambert to buy out their shares in the company. We have been saying this since this story unfolded but whatever the Mohn family is trying to keep a lid on that taking the company public will shine light on, must be some serious stuff. Then again we have been also saying that they are just greedy and want to keep the company to themselves. FRANKFURT, May 25 — Moving swiftly to fend off a public stock offering, the founding family of Germany's leading media conglomerate, Bertelsmann, announced Thursday that it had agreed to buy out its only outside shareholder for 4.5 billion euros, or $5.8 billion. The deal, which came two days after the shareholder, Groupe Bruxelles Lambert, gained the legal right to demand an offering, will return Bertelsmann to the full control of the Mohn family. The family, led by Liz Mohn, the wife of its 84-year-old patriarch, Reinhard Mohn, had grown uncomfortable with the prospect of a public listing, which would have exposed Bertelsmann to the scrutiny of the markets and could have eroded the family's influence over its affairs. "I am happy about the buyback," Mrs. Mohn said Thursday in a statement. "It guarantees the independence of the company and its lasting and sustained development on the basis of our proven corporate culture." read...