Bertelsmann has found a like-minded mixed media company in Kadokawa Shoten, a publisher in general trade and dictionaries that also produces CD-ROMs, music CDs and video cassettes. The partners will cooperate in new media as well as in more conventional activities, such as movies and music, while Bertelsmann hopes to further its own business development in Japan and elsewhere in Asia.
Bertelsmann will acquire 3% of Kadokawa in the coming months, within the framework of the latter's planned capital increase. Kadokawa went public in November 1998 as part of its plan for expansion in Asia. It set up a first foreign subsidiary in Taiwan in April.
