Bastei Lübbe AG acquires "smarticular" publishing house and sustainability platform

• Expansion of core business with innovative publishing and community model
• Perfect complement to the existing portfolio of non-fiction and guidebooks
• Further development and expansion of offerings on societally relevant topics

Cologne, 22.12.2020. The Cologne-based trade publisher Bastei Lübbe AG (ISIN DE000A1X3YY0), one of the leading German-language publishers, announces the complete acquisition of Business Hub Berlin UG. Founded and based in Berlin, the company operates the publishing house "smarticular" as well as the sustainability platforms www.smarticular.net and www.kostbarenatur.net as part of an innovative publishing model.

With its publications, smarticular and its 10-person team support a shift in society away from mass consumption and a throwaway society and promote the conscious use of resources and mindfulness towards the environment. The topics and contents of the books are inspired by the communication with the organically grown community of the platforms and thus guarantee a lively discussion with the community members as well as an enrichment of the variety of topics. With this integrated business model, "smarticular" is extremely successful and reaches approximately 3 million people per month. Both companies expect significant synergy effects from the joint expansion of the guidebook programs. Bastei Lübbe is also expanding its range and expertise in the area of sustainability with the acquisition.

"We are delighted to be able to add such a successful company to our publishing family. We see the core topic of 'sustainable living' as an important enrichment and contemporary expansion of our portfolio. The close connection between online and print clearly represents an innovative further development of the classic publishing model for us," says Joachim Herbst, Spokesman of the Executive Board of Bastei Lübbe AG, explaining the acquisition.

The acquisition is to be completed in January 2021 with economic effect as of January 1, 2021.

Even after the acquisition, the editorial independence and brand essence of "smarticular" will be preserved. The publishing headquarters in Berlin will be maintained and the two founders Marco Eder and Sebastian Knecht signed multi-year contracts as managing directors. Eder and Knecht will continue to be independently responsible for the future direction of the program, thus ensuring continuity and quality of content and products. Nevertheless, there is agreement that the realization of synergies is possible and will lead to positive effects for both companies. In the future, the editorial team at "smarticular" will be able to concentrate even more on community development and content and further expand the range of online content and books.

"With Bastei Lübbe, we have found a partner that enables us to support our young company financially and operationally and offers us development opportunities that we would not otherwise have," says Marco Eder. "It was important to us that our future partner guarantees our independence: This way, we can assure our community members that they will continue to find everything they appreciate about 'smarticular' in exactly the same way, and can only benefit from the cooperation behind the scenes," adds Sebastian Knecht.

Joachim Herbst underlines the intended continuity and the strengthening of sustainable topics resulting from the cooperation: "We do not want to change anything in the successful model of 'smarticular', but maintain this orientation. It was important to us that the management and team remain on board, because they stand for the values of the company. Together, we have the goal of making these socially relevant topics accessible to an even larger target group."

About Bastei Lübbe AG:
Bastei Lübbe AG is a German publishing house based in Cologne, which specializes in the production of books, audio books and eBooks with fiction and popular science content. The company's core business also includes periodically published novel booklets. With a total of twelve publishing houses and imprints, the group of companies currently has around 3,600 fiction, non-fiction, children's and youth books on offer. In the growing segment of hardcover fiction, the company has been one of the market leaders in Germany for many years. At the same time, Bastei Lübbe is an innovation driver in the field of digital media and exploitation channels, among other things through the production of thousands of audio and eBooks.

With annual sales of approx. EUR 82 million (financial year 2019/2020), Bastei Lübbe AG is one of the largest medium-sized publishing companies in Germany. The shares of the company have been listed in the Prime Standard segment on the Frankfurt stock exchange (GSIN A1X3YY, ISIN DE000A1X3YY0) since 2013. Further information is available at www.luebbe.com.

Contact Bastei Lübbe AG:
Barbara Fischer
Head of Press and Public Relations
Tel.: +49 221 / 82 00 28 50
E-Mail: [email protected]