ProSiebenSat.1 sells minority stake in Urban Sports Club to Wellhub
Unterföhring, March 25, 2025. ProSiebenSat.1 Media sells its minority stake in Urban Sports Club to Wellhub. The transaction is part of the acquisition of Urban Sports Club by Wellhub, a leading global corporate wellbeing platform, announced today. With this step, ProSiebenSat.1 consistently pursues its successful media-for-equity strategy and simultaneously focuses on the entertainment business.
Urban Sports Club, founded in 2012, is a leading European platform for sports and wellness. ProSiebenSat.1 acquired a stake in Urban Sports Club in 2021 via SevenGrowth as part of the media-for-equity program and through a direct financial investment. The cooperation with ProSiebenSat.1 has significantly supported the company's growth and strengthened brand awareness through targeted media investments. With media-for-equity, ProSiebenSat.1 invests free advertising time in aspiring e-commerce companies and in return participates in their growth.
Martin Mildner, CFO of ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE: "Urban Sports Club is another example of the success of our media-for-equity approach. The company has benefited considerably from the reach of our channels and our expertise in brand building – and ProSiebenSat.1 is now in turn benefiting from the significant increase in value of our minority stake in just a few years. The proceeds from the sale will strengthen our financial base and help us to further expand our core entertainment business."
Florian Hirschberger, CEO SevenVentures: "In recent years, we have worked very successfully and trustingly with the Urban Sports Club team. Together, we were able to realize multiple successful campaigns and reach many customers by targeting the right audience. This successful development emphasizes the value and effectiveness of TV as a medium and demonstrates the attractiveness of SevenGrowth as a strategic investor in up-and-coming growth companies."
The sale of the minority stake in Urban Sports Club and the recent sales of Verivox and the stake in About You will reduce ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE's net debt by more than EUR 250 million after the closing. This will reduce the pro forma leverage ratio to slightly above 2.4x in 2024.
Marco, 2025 was a year of great change for ProSiebenSat.1. MFE-MEDIAFOREUROPE has been the new majority shareholder since September. You've been the new Group CEO since October. How have the first few months been for you?
Whether with campfire formats like "The Masked Singer" and "Who's Stealing My Show?" or successful in-house productions like "Germany's Next Topmodel - by Heidi Klum": We stand for the best entertainment. And that at any time, anywhere and on any device.
Five values in the corporate culture of ProSiebenSat.1 form the common foundation for over 7,000 employees. In this interview, five colleagues talk about how they live the values in the ProSiebenSat.1 cosmos.