Most international of all
multimedia - corporations, founded in 1835 by
Carl Bertelsmann, a small time printer supporting the local protestant church with his first books. In family hands since then, it now sports an impressive array of TV-Stations,
Random House,
Arista,
BMG, numerous publishers, the doomed
Napster and
Lycos and the amazon.com wannabe, bol.com.
The majority of shares is owned by its own in-house liberal thinktank, the Bertelsmann-Foundation to avoid hostile and friendly takeovers which would dilute its unusual focus on employees welfare as a nod to its protestant ethics.