Hubert Burda Media can once again look back on a successful year. Despite industry-wide stagnation of core business, the company saw an increase in its total turnover: Operating performance increased by 2.9 % from 2.15 bn Euro to 2.21 bn Euro and consolidated sales (external sales) grew by 5.3% from 1.6 bn Euro to 1.69 bn Euro. The company results from core business in 2007 reached the highest level since the company was founded. The continued cost discipline and the restructuring which was carried out contributed towards this considerably. This strategy will therefore be continued. Due to decreasing advertisements and sales revenue, it is essential that 2008 sees continued cost discipline.

Hubert Burda Media is developing from a classic publishing and printing house into a multimedia concern which interlinks its different areas of business in a cross-platform way. The company was also able to grow considerably in 2007 due to the continued consolidation strategy in the declining printing market and in the saturated domestic magazine-publishing houses, and above-average investments in the emerging markets of the internet and foreign publishing houses. The digital area delivered the largest growth contribution with an increase in sales of 19% to 274.5 bn Euro and international sales of the publishing houses grew by 11.3% to 374 bn. Euro.

The magazines have again contributed the most to the company’s turnover and to the overall result. The trend for magazines remains strong. They achieved 64.3% (2006: 65.1%) in external sales, while the digital area reached 16.3% (2006: 14.4%), dialogue marketing 9.8% (2006: 9.8%) and print 9.3% (2006: 10.4%).

In order to be able to respond to the changing market conditions, the equity investment business of Burda Digital Ventures (BDV) was newly structured. The majority of BDV investments have been looked after by Acton Capital Partners, Munich. The new fund from Acton Capital Partners, Heureka Growth, is also available to third party investors and concentrates on technology-based and booming businesses which are already successful. Hubert Burda Media will invest in this fund.

Christiane zu Salm, who has been on the board of directors at Hubert Burda Media as Board Member for Cross Media since 1st April, has established her area of responsibility and is creating an innovative platform for future publishing-related digital business at Hubert Burda Media. The cross-media strategy plans to stringently combine target groups according to fields of interest, thereby creating vertical marketplaces (verticals) which will combine and market the Burda brands together with partner brands. This will therefore enable the company to reach a wide audience, which will create new possible sources of income from online advertising and e-commerce. One of the main focuses is also on the moving image market. Selected acquisitions and investments in booming, publishing-related and strategic online business are planned.

In 2008 and 2009 Hubert Burda Media will be focusing on the strategic key aspects as well as further optimising the classic publishing business in the areas of digital marketing, international magazines and direct marketing. Digital media will complement the classic business areas. With a selected cross-media strategy, strong networking and selected changes in structure, the change in consumer behaviour towards digital media and other offerings will be taken into account.