About GoingPublic

GoingPublic

GoingPublic is a German monthly magazine for the capital markets, published from Munich by the listed GoingPublic Media AG. Launched in December 1997 as a new-issues magazine on the threshold of the IPO boom of 1998 to 2000, it has documented the German equity capital market through boom, bust, and recovery for nearly three decades. The magazine addresses issuers, investors, and the financial community with coverage of IPOs, corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, tax and legal developments, and the being-public and investor-relations disciplines. It is the flagship of a small listed media group, the GoingPublic Media AG, founded in 1998 by Markus Rieger and itself traded on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange's Quotation Board and the Munich Stock Exchange's m:access segment. Alongside the monthly print edition, the brand operates the capital-market portal goingpublic.de and a program of around fifteen events per year, making it a cross-media platform rather than a magazine alone.

Overview

GoingPublic appears monthly and positions itself as the leading provider of corporate-finance content on the German capital market. Its readership spans the full ecosystem of going and being public: management boards and CFOs of listed and listing-candidate companies, investor-relations professionals, investment bankers, corporate-finance advisers, lawyers, auditors, and institutional and private investors. The editorial program illuminates being-public and investor-relations trends for issuers and presents all relevant capital-market innovations, from regulatory changes to new financing instruments.

The magazine's sections reflect the deal cycle: Tax & Legal, shaped by regular specialist contributions from leading law firms; M&A, covering public takeovers through to going-private transactions; and continuous coverage of new issues and the IPO markets worldwide. Alternative financing instruments such as profit-participation certificates (Genussscheine) and corporate bonds receive dedicated attention, acknowledging that the German Mittelstand finances itself far beyond the equity market. Even in periods of capital-market depression and IPO drought, the publisher has kept the brand as its oldest name, meeting rapid market change with editorial adaptation rather than retreat.

History

The GoingPublic magazine was launched in December 1997 as a Neuemissionsmagazin, a new-issues magazine, timed for the IPO boom of the Neuer Markt years 1998 to 2000, when dozens of young German companies rushed to the stock exchange. The following bear-market years brought a profound transformation: with the Neuer Markt collapsing, the magazine pivoted from pure IPO coverage to the broader corporate-finance agenda, establishing itself as a provider of content on the entire German capital market. That adaptability became the title's defining trait.

The publisher, GoingPublic Media AG, was founded in 1998 by Markus Rieger, who remains its chief executive. In a neat symmetry, the media company covering IPOs went public itself: its shares were listed on November 1, 2006, and trade in the Quotation Board of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (Xetra) as well as in m:access, the SME segment of the Munich Stock Exchange, under ticker G6P (WKN A40KXC, ISIN DE000A40KXC8). Over the years the group expanded beyond the capital-market platform into two further cross-media platforms: Unternehmeredition with the specialist magazine FuS for family businesses and the Mittelstand, and a Life Sciences platform. A multilingual German-Chinese investment platform became the basis for the China Investment Media GmbH subsidiary, founded in 2019 with a 70 percent stake. In March 2025 the group sold its stake in BondGuide Media, the corporate-bond platform, a transaction that shaped its 2025 results. For the 2026 financial year the group has guided toward rising revenues and a positive annual result on the back of a good order situation.

Coverage and Content

The monthly magazine's editorial sections map the capital-market value chain. Coverage of new issues and the IPO markets, in Germany and worldwide, remains the historical core, tracking listing candidates, pricing, and aftermarket performance. The Being Public section addresses the obligations and opportunities of listed-company life: corporate governance, disclosure, annual general meetings, and investor-relations practice. Tax & Legal contributions from leading law firms analyze regulatory and legislative developments, while the M&A section follows public takeovers, squeeze-outs, and going-private transactions.

Alternative financing forms receive sustained attention: corporate bonds, Schuldschein loans, profit-participation rights, and mezzanine instruments are covered with the same seriousness as equity, reflecting the financing reality of German mid-caps. The magazine also reports on market infrastructure, trading venues, and the service providers of the financial community, from issuing houses to IR agencies. Special issues and rankings supplement the monthly rhythm, and the editorial team moderates panels and conferences that extend the brand's agenda-setting role. The tone is professional and insider-oriented, written for readers who work in or around the capital markets rather than for general investors.

Organization and Ownership

GoingPublic is published by the GoingPublic Media Aktiengesellschaft, headquartered at Hofmannstraße 7a in Munich. The company was founded in 1998 by Markus Rieger, who serves as its sole board member (Vorstand). The supervisory board comprises Dr. Bernd Jäger, Dr. Lars-Gerrit Lüßmann, and Frank Schnattinger. The company is listed in the open market segments of the Frankfurt, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Munich, and Stuttgart exchanges, with its primary quotations in Frankfurt's Quotation Board and Munich's m:access.

The group describes itself as one of the leading media houses for corporate-financing and investment topics, operating three cross-media platforms: the GoingPublic capital-market platform, the Unternehmeredition platform for family businesses and the Mittelstand (including the FuS specialist magazine), and the Life Sciences platform. Each platform combines magazine, online, social-media, and event activities. The group publishes around 25 to 30 magazine issues per year across its platforms, operates two online portals (goingpublic.de and unternehmeredition.de), maintains three LinkedIn presences, and stages approximately fifteen physical, virtual, and hybrid events per year. Detailed editorial staffing for the GoingPublic title itself is not publicly confirmed.

The Magazine and German Capital-Market Culture

GoingPublic's longevity gives it a distinctive role as the chronicler of Germany's often hesitant relationship with the equity market. The title was born in the euphoria of the Neuer Markt, survived its collapse, and then accompanied the long, slow professionalization of the German IPO market through the 2010s and the SPAC and tech-listing waves of the early 2020s. Few German publications have covered as many listing cycles from the inside, and the magazine's archive amounts to a business history of German going-public activity. Its editorial stance has consistently been that of a market friend rather than a market cheerleader: critical of regulatory overreach, attentive to the concerns of issuers, and insistent that a functioning IPO market matters for the financing of innovation.

That positioning has made the magazine a fixture at the industry's gatherings, from the Eigenkapitalforum to the various capital-market conferences where bankers, lawyers, and CFOs meet. The brand's events, panels, and awards give it an agenda-setting function that extends beyond its page count, and its willingness to keep the GoingPublic name through years when IPOs were scarce signaled a commitment that the financial community has repaid with loyalty. In a media landscape where financial journalism increasingly concentrates in a few large newsrooms, the magazine remains one of the rare independent editorial voices dedicated entirely to the German capital market.

Digital Presence

The capital-market portal goingpublic.de is the digital counterpart of the magazine, carrying news, analyses, and event information for the German capital-market community. The sister portal unternehmeredition.de serves the family-business and Mittelstand platform, and a German-Chinese investment platform addresses cross-border investment topics. Each of the three platforms maintains a LinkedIn presence, the professional network where the financial community discusses the magazine's topics.

The group's event business, with roughly fifteen events per year, ranges from capital-market conferences to award ceremonies and roundtables, providing the physical meeting points that complement print and online. Newsletters deliver curated capital-market news to subscribers between issues. The company's own investor-relations communications, published via EQS News as a listed company, offer unusual transparency into the publisher's business: half-year and annual figures, dividend proposals, and outlook statements are all public, giving readers a direct view of the economics of specialist financial publishing.