In international publishing, Bauer is a major player with 185 magazines in 15 countries, but its radio interests (non-existent in the UK) are negligible - a stake in Radio Hamburg and something in Poland - and its UK presence is solely in weekly magazines, largely in the real-life sector.
Through the Emap purchase, it is now the second-largest radio owner in the UK and the proud owner of 20-odd Emap magazines from Golf World to Grazia and Classic Cars to Closer.
For now, everyone is happy. No one is talking of streamlining the business or flogging unwanted bits off. Yet, you have to suspect that this tale has some way to go.
Bauer is a centralised group with regional divisional bosses reporting into its head office in Germany.
This augurs well for Emap's radio chiefs, perhaps less so for the magazine publishers and the people who work on some of those magazines.
Bauer believes that every magazine should be profitable, so those in Emap's stable that have survived because they are part of an ad sales portfolio or through corporate hubris - such as Arena, NW, First, Zoo and Top Sante - are vulnerable.
Yet, having significantly outbid rivals to pay £718m for the magazines business (and £433m for radio), Bauer must have great faith in the rest of the publishing business. Emap Advertising is one big upside. Currently, Bauer runs its ad sales through an independent ad sales house. Moving this to Emap's sales team will save money in commissions and should bring in more revenue for the merged Bauer and Emap portfolio.
Emap staff will have to embrace a very different culture: Bauer isconservatively Germanic and obsessively secretive - it has been known to launch magazines without telling anyone.
The upside is that it is a family firm that invests quietly and for the long term. For Emap staff who remain, this will be a blessed relief from the unwelcome stock-market glare and doom-laden headlines of the past year.
- Colin Grimshaw is the deputy editor of Media Week.
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