Live Nation, Sony, BMG Rights, KKR and Bertelsmann were also said to be in the mix.
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Bertelsmann, one of the world's biggest media companies, has also enjoyed the luxury of family ownership.
RTL, a big pan-European broadcaster owned by Germany's Bertelsmann, might clamber back into the game.
Bertelsmann will nominate five directors to the Board of Penguin Random House and Pearson will nominate four.
ENGADGET: Penguin and Random House merge, promise a brave new e-book future
Dohle, who is forty-one years old, rose as an executive on the printing side of Bertelsmann A.G.
Porsche and Bertelsmann are exceptional companies that have renewed themselves without direct pressure from the capital markets.
Ironically, paperback rights for the book have been sold to Black Swan, an imprint owned by Bertelsmann.
Those letters went to the German-based Bertelsmann company, which owns 50 percent of Barnesandnoble.com, and to Amazon.com.
BMG, one of the world's five biggest record companies, is a key part of Bertelsmann's ongoing media stepout.
Now that Bertelsmann has absorbed one of its competitors in America, Internet bookselling has become a two-sided affair.
Bertelsmann will own 53% of the joint venture and Pearson will own 47%.
ENGADGET: Penguin and Random House merge, promise a brave new e-book future
Bertelsmann's Ms von Peter has a string of horror stories about European recipients.
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But there are suggestions that Bertelsmann might be taking a more lateral view.
Ms Mohn rose to power at Bertelsmann via her marriage to Reinhard Mohn, whose family founded it in 1835.
Bertelsmann will now abandon its planned launch of BooksOnline in America, which it had been rushing to put together.
There is much debate within Bertelsmann about who is to blame for its failure to spot the danger sooner.
BMG, the music division of Bertelsmann, a German media conglomerate, is losing money.
The European Commission reaffirmed its decision to allow a 2004 merger between the music divisions of Sony and Bertelsmann .
Pearson and Bertelsmann today announce an agreement to create the world's leading consumer publishing organisation by combining Penguin and Random House.
ENGADGET: Penguin and Random House merge, promise a brave new e-book future
Time Warner, The Chernin Group, Bertelsmann, Discovery Communications and Comcast have all invested in companies that create or aggregate YouTube content.
This week, the group said it will bundle its disparate e-commerce activities into a single entity, to be called Bertelsmann E-Commerce Group.
Wang previously worked at Bertelsmann Group and Hughes Electronics and received degrees from INSEAD, Johns Hopkins and the College of Staten Island.
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Whatever road Bertelsmann chooses, it says there is no hurry - it is certain it will get there by its self-imposed deadline.
Mr. Jobs disclosed that e-books published by Bertelsmann AG's Random House Inc.
By comparison, Liz Mohn, who wields power on behalf of the controlling family at Bertelsmann, Europe's biggest media company, is an unknown.
Bertelsmann says that some will be shifted to the new joint venture, but it is unclear whether they will all be redeployed.
Under the terms of the agreement, neither Pearson nor Bertelsmann may sell any part of their shareholding in Penguin Random House for three years.
ENGADGET: Penguin and Random House merge, promise a brave new e-book future
He took the firm public in early 1996, then expanded to Europe (through a joint venture with Bertelsmann, a German media giant) and Japan.
Aside from Bertelsmann, whose newish boss, Thomas Middelhoff, is 46, they are run by old and oldish men Rupert Murdoch, Sumner Redstone and Gerald Levin.
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