The 33-year-old scion of one in every of Europe’s strongest media households is to take the helm of the music label BMG as its guardian firm Bertelsmann grooms its subsequent technology of leaders.
Thomas Coesfeld will take over in July from outgoing chief govt Hartwig Masuch, who has presided over the music group since 2008 and made it into one of the vital profitable arms of the German publishing conglomerate that additionally owns Penguin Random Home and broadcasting group RTL.
Coesfeld and his brother Carsten, who was final yr appointed chief govt of Bertelsmann’s funding group, are the seventh technology of the dynasty that based the corporate in 1835.
BMG, which is a European rival to the US music teams of Common, Warner and Sony, stated that the appointment would convey ahead a long-planned change of management on the division that had initially been scheduled for January subsequent yr.
It added that the 69-year-old Masuch had requested an earlier departure as a consequence of his personal private plans for the long run however that he would stay related to Bertelsmann in an advisory capability till 2026.
Thomas Rabe, Bertelsmann’s chief govt, described him as “a fantastic music entrepreneur” who had constructed a brand new kind of music firm.
Masuch stated he was “leaving on a excessive observe — and within the agency conviction that with Thomas Coesfeld and his administration group, a brand new technology will efficiently lead the music firm into a brand new period”.
Bertelsmann offered its previous music publishing enterprise to Common Music in 2006 for €1.63bn after which began from scratch two years later below Masuch.
Since then, it has grown into one of the vital thriving arms of the Bertelsmann group — which earned revenues of greater than €20bn final yr — because it pursued an aggressive technique of buying music labels and catalogues with the backing of the US non-public fairness agency KKR.
The Berlin-based music group, which counts Rita Ora and Kylie Minogue amongst its artists and represents again catalogues together with these of Mick Jagger and Roger Waters, loved the quickest progress in its historical past final yr, rising revenues by 31 per cent to €866mn. Working earnings after earnings earlier than curiosity, taxes, depreciation and amortisation had been €195mn.
Coesfeld, a former McKinsey marketing consultant, joined the household enterprise in 2016. He turned deputy chief monetary officer at BMG in 2020 earlier than changing into chief monetary officer the next yr.
His most fast targets are more likely to be sustaining the tempo of progress and reaching a goal of attaining annual revenues of €1bn.
Alice Enders, a music trade knowledgeable on the consultancy Enders Evaluation, stated Masuch was a legend within the music trade whose “sneakers could also be onerous to fill”. However she stated that, as a former chief monetary officer, Coesfeld understood the enterprise “extraordinarily nicely”. She described him as a “good selection” to proceed the “sound monetary administration” at BMG.
Coesfeld and his brother are broadly seen inside Bertelsmann as being ready to take over the management of the family-owned media empire from Rabe, who has served as chief govt since 2002. His contract is because of expire in 2026.
The siblings are the grandsons of the late Reinhard Mohn, who turned a provincial printing home that started life publishing Bibles into a world media participant. Mohn’s son Christoph, a toddler of his second marriage, is the chair of Bertelsmann’s supervisory board. The Coesfeld brothers are Reinhard Mohn’s grandchildren from his first relationship.