91EY Family Business Yearbook 2016 |90 | EY Family Business Yearbook 2016

Award winners Europe Switzerland

Tamedia owns and publishes many of

Switzerland’s best-known newspapers, magazines

and websites. More than 100 years old, the

media group is still controlled by the founding

family. Currently at the helm of the business is

fifth-generation family member Pietro Supino. For more than 20 years, he has successfully shaped

the development of the media company, putting

it into great shape for the 21st century. And

at the same time, building the family unity that

underpins the business.

Europe

North America

Latin America

Asia-Pacific

Dr. Pietro SupinoTamedia AG

“The challenge for the family is to keep oversight on all the developments in the business.”

Dr. Pietro Supino,

Publisher, Tamedia AG

93EY Family Business Yearbook 2016 |92 | EY Family Business Yearbook 2016

Family businesses that survive for more than 100 years tend to have something extra special about them. Tamedia is a good illustration of this. It is now managed by Pietro Supino, who is a fifth-generation member of the controlling family and the great-great-grandson of the founder. Tamedia has become Switzerland’s biggest media group, thanks largely to the tenacity of successive generations of the family.

Pietro was appointed to the board in 1991

As Tamedia’s Chairman, Pietro has certainly displayed that tenacity. He has played a leading role at the group since he was appointed to the board in 1991. Through innovations, acquisitions and a stock exchange listing, Pietro has forged Tamedia into a 21st-century media group, spanning traditional newspapers, magazines and cutting-edge digital platforms.

Tamedia publishes some of Switzerland’s best-known newspapers, including the Zurich-based German-language daily Tages-Anzeiger. With a circulation of 160,000, Tages-Anzeiger is the country’s biggest quality paper, and it has been at the core of the media group from the beginning. Other well-known publications in the Tamedia stable include the free national newspaper 20 Minuten, the weekly financial paper Finanz und Wirtschaft and the Sunday newspaper SonntagsZeitung.

From its brand-new headquaters in Zurich, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Shigeru Ban, Tamedia also publishes some of Switzerland’s best-known magazines, including the weekly women’s magazine Annabelle, and Schweizer Familie, one of the country’s oldest magazines.

Tamedia also owns and operates the country’s most popular websites, and the group has its own printing facilities. Altogether, this adds up to a business with more than 3,400 employees that had revenues of CHF1114.5m (US$1.123m) in 2014.

By any standards, Tamedia is a big business for one family to manage, but this is especially true in the fast-moving media sector. “The challenge for the family is to keep oversight on all the developments in the business,” says Pietro. “Many of the developments [we face] are quite dramatic.” Judged on his performance so far, Pietro has been more than up to the task. Revenues and profits at the media group have grown over the last decade, albeit with a few difficult years. And in the context of the disruption in traditional print media brought by the digital revolution, Tamedia’s numbers remain among the best in the business.

Members of the fourth and fifth generations

Twenty-one members of the controlling family, from the fourth and fifth generations, own around 72% of Tamedia. The remaining shares are publicly traded on the Swiss Stock Exchange. “The family shareholders meet three times a year,” says Pietro. “Once for our general assembly, once for a weekend and once to discuss how shareholders will vote at the assembly.” Pietro says that, on these occasions, the family shareholders are informed about and discuss the development of the company. There is a shareholders’ agreement and a plan to draw up another set of principles to bind the business and the family together.

Pietro joined the media group after a successful career as a lawyer and entrepreneur. He founded a law firm and a private bank before he was 30, and worked for the management consultancy firm McKinsey before. He gained degrees from the University of St. Gallen and the London School of Economics, and he attended the Columbia School of Journalism in New York.

Pietro’s link to the family that founded the business is on his mother’s side, Rena Coninx Supino, who is the great-granddaughter of the founder Wilhelm Girardet. Wilhelm, a successful publisher of newspapers in Germany, came to Zurich seeking new opportunities. He set up the company that, in 1893, launched Tages-Anzeiger. In 1905, Otto Coninx married Berta Girardet, Wilhelm’s daughter. Otto eventually became the head

Award winners Europe Switzerland

Today, the modern newsroom offers up-to-date coverage for print and all kinds of digital media.

The German Wilhelm Giradet Sr. founded the company in Zurich in 1893.

The printing house of the Tages-Anzeiger at Stauffacherquai in Zurich.

Distribution of the Tages-Anzeiger in 1931.

95EY Family Business Yearbook 2016 |94 | EY Family Business Yearbook 2016

of the business in Zurich and gradually bought out his father-in-law’s shares in the Swiss business. In 1926, Otto became a Swiss citizen, and the company became fully Swiss-owned. Tages-Anzeiger soon became Switzerland’s biggest-selling newspaper and remained the main focus of the business for much of the 20th century.

Building unity among the family shareholders

Otto’s sons Otto Coninx-Wettstein and Werner Coninx became board members in 1942. Otto Coninx-Wettstein took over the running of the business after the death of his father in 1956. The fourth generation became involved with the business in the early 1970s, with fourth-generation member Hans Heinrich Coninx becoming Chief Executive and, later, Chairman. Hans Heinrich, Pietro’s uncle, stepped down in 2007 and handed the chairmanship of the board of directors over to Pietro. Born in Milan but raised in Zurich, Pietro is probably best known for leading the media group, but he has also managed the family side of the business.

Pietro says that one of the reasons for having an initial public offering was to realize private wealth for members of the family who had left the business and to build unity among the family shareholders. Pietro is currently the only family member working full-time at Tamedia, although two of his cousins sit on the board. There is no formal succession plan in place, but steps are being taken to bring the next generation into the business.

“[Every] member of the family should have the possibility to come into the company at a young age, for a limited time as a trainee,” says Pietro. “There is also the possibility for family members to work at the business, but only if they meet the same qualifications and requirements as the others.” Pietro adds that, in the future, the company will avoid appointing family members to the management board. “That would put the chief executive in an awkward position between the board of directors and the family member on the management board,” he says.

Pietro believes the biggest benefit of being a family business comes from the family’s contribution to the company. “It’s about being open-minded publishers who do not follow a political agenda,” he says. “And like many family businesses, it is also about having a long-term vision.” With these core values firmly held by the family, and with the entrepreneurial zeal shown by Pietro at the helm, there is every reason to believe that Tamedia has the firm foundations it needs to go on as a family business for another 100 years at least.

“There is the possibility for family members to work at the business, but only if they meet the same qualifications and requirements as the others.”Dr. Pietro Supino

Award winners Europe Switzerland

Dr. Pietro SupinoPublisher and Chairman of the Board of Directors

Company name: Tamedia AG

Generation(s): Fourth and fifth

Founded: 1893 in Zurich, Switzerland

Industry: Media

Employees (2014): 3,417 (group, full-time equivalents)

Revenue (2014): €1.026b (group)

The new Tamedia media group’s office building at Stauffacher in Zurich was opened in 2013.

The groups’ printing house in Bern is one of the biggest in Switzerland.

Japanese architect Shigeru Ban has designed a unique building consisting of wood and glass.