In addition, dpa has increased its stake in the British financial news agency Alliance News from 3.9% to 10.7%. The dpa executive board views this commitment as an opportunity to expand the agency’s activities in the field of global financial information in a targeted manner. The European Newsroom (enr) project, which has been joined by a number of new agencies, AMNA (Greece), ANP (Netherlands), CTK (Czech Republic), PAP (Poland), Lusa (Portugal), Ritzau (Denmark) and TT (Sweden), is also showing encouraging signs of progress. A total of 23 news agencies are now involved. The aim of the project, which was launched in 2022, is to strengthen exchanges between agency journalists at the European level and to enhance reporting on EU issues. The enr is funded by the European Commission.
In addition to editorial innovations and strategic decisions, there have also been significant changes in the dpa group’s personnel structure. Matthias Mahn, Head of Human Resources and Legal Department, has stepped down from the dpa executive board. Matthias Mahn had been with dpa since 2002 and had been Senior Vice President since 2010. Since July 2024, Peter Kropsch, CEO and President of the executive board, and Andreas Schmidt, Senior Vice President and Head of Finance, Logistics, Legal Department and IT, have jointly made up the company’s executive board.
We believe that Caren Siebold is the ideal person to fill the newly created position of Chief Product Officer (CPO). She was previously Managing Director of dpa IT. She is now responsible for the agency’s product portfolio and manages internal processes between sales, IT and product management across the group. Caren Siebold is also now an authorised officer for dpa.
Teresa Dapp is the new Managing Director of dpa-infocom. Together with the previous Managing Director, Jirka Albig, she will lead the subsidiary in a dual leadership role. Teresa Dapp has been responsible for the fact-checking team since 2021 and will continue to hold this position.
dpa has also filled several management positions in the editorial department. Among others, Stefanie Koller has taken on the newly created position of Head of Newsroom, Sophia Weimer completes the five-member news management team, Benedikt von Imhoff is the agency’s new business editor, and Miriam Schmidt heads the Panorama editorial tea
3. Position
Earnings performance
With a net profit of 1.4 million euros, the earnings forecast was exceeded despite a lower-than-expected growth in turnover. This was partly due to the strong earnings contributions from subsidiaries and associates that once again exceeded expectations, as well as lower-than-planned costs and cost savings in all areas. Without the higher than planned allocation to the provident fund of 0.8 million euros, the net profit for the year would have been even bigger.
The turnover at dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH increased by 1.2 million euros, or 1.2%, to 105.5 million euros in 2024. The planned increase in turnover of 3.2 million euros was therefore only partially achieved. The main factor behind the increase in turnover was the integration of the digital editorial team at dpa-infocom into the dpa central editorial team and the associated transfer of the corresponding WebLine revenues. Without this transfer, which took place on July 1, 2024, dpa GmbH would have recorded a decline in revenue.
The deviation from the projected turnover was mainly due to the revenue from the Custom Content division falling significantly below target.