KKR acquires Universum Film

The acquisition comes shortly after KKR acquired German audiovisual media group Tele München Gruppe (TMG). So far, the two companies make up KKR's new independent audiovisual content platform in Germany.

KKR drew funds from its European Fund IV, which held its final close on around $3.7bn in 2015. The fund was 74% deployed as of December 2018.

The company was acquired in 2017 from Mediengruppe RTL, a Cologne-based media group with a turnover of €2.3bn.

After the acquisition of TMG, KKR brought in media entrepreneur Fred Kogel as CEO of the new platform. Kogel has now hired Markus Frerker as COO. Universum's current CEO Bernhard zu Castell will stay on in his current role.

Company
Founded in 1977, Universum Film is a distributor of film, anime and children's content, and owns the rights to approximately 3,700 titles. It offers physical and digital distribution services to third parties and produces films also. In 2015, the company began distributing audio content. Universum is based in Munich.

People
KKR – Philipp Freise (head of the European technology, media and telecommunications industry team).
Audiovisual content platform – Fred Kogel (CEO).
Mediengruppe RTL – Jörg Graf (CEO and COO of programme affairs).
Universum Film – Bernhard zu Castell (CEO).

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• Topics
• Expansion
• DACH
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• KKR
• Germany
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