Holding for Weltwoche

 
Publishers Did publisher Roger Köppel really set up a holding company just for his Weltwoche? 
Weltwoche publisher Roger Köppel founded a new company in mid-May - Köppel Holding AG, based in Zurich. It has a share capital of 100,000 Swiss francs and absorbed Weltwoche Verlags AG (share capital: just under two million Swiss francs) on the day it was founded. As with Weltwoche Verlags AG, the commercial register also shows two members of the Board of Directors at Köppel Holding - Köppel himself and lawyer Martin Wagner. However, the roles are now reversed: at Weltwoche, Wagner is Chairman of the Board of Directors and Köppel is a delegate; at the holding company, Köppel is Chairman of the Board of Directors and Wagner is a simple member.A holding company makes sense above all when expansion is imminent or other companies are to be united under the same roof. Köppel, however, says: "I have no expansion plans." On the other hand, he has debts from the Weltwoche purchase. That's why he founded the holding company, says Köppel. Because debt repayments can be handled more tax-efficiently via a holding company. The holding company is not a precursor to a corporate transaction. In concrete terms: Köppel and Wagner do not want to park their shares in Radio Basilisk under the holding company umbrella.
Although the holding company is currently primarily intended to fulfill an accounting function, Köppel is not ruling out future acquisitions. "However, my strategic focus is on Weltwoche. The first thing is to make it debt-free," says the publisher.
Köppel hints that his Weltwoche closed 2007 with an operating profit. According to VSW advertising statistics, the paper was one of the titles that was able to gain market share slightly. In 2006, when Köppel took over Weltwoche from Tito Tettamanti, it still had an operating deficit of three million francs. A hole that Köppel himself did not have to make up for. "I was able to start from scratch," he says.
Markus Knöpfli