KKR, Axel Springer and AI: What does it take to lead Value Creation in the age of Artificial Intelligence?

Philipp FreiseThe first thing that you can do as an owner is to make sure it's on the agenda, full stop. So in any investments we make, if it's when we research them, when we execute them, and when we own them and we lead them, we make sure that this is top of the agenda.

Julian DeutzAnd what we did is we provided a kind of pool of financial means outside the budget, and KKR was super supportive with that, because we said it's not as it's not important whether we do 10% more or less EBITDA in '23, it's important that we get everybody on that journey.

Sebastian VoigtHi, everyone, and welcome to a very special edition of the Pricing Friends podcast. I'm Sebastian, and today we're not in the studio. We're coming to you from the top floor of the Axel Springer building in Berlin, where we recently hosted an exclusive event during SuperReturn 2025. Together with my partner, Jan Hasse, who leads our AI consulting business at hy, I had the pleasure of co-moderating a live panel discussion with two outstanding guests. On the one hand side, Philipp Freise, Co-Head of KKR Private Equity in Europe, and on the other side, Julian Deutz, former CFO of Axel Springer and now CEO of AS Classifieds. In front of more than 100 private equity professionals, we explored one of the most fascinating PE deals of the recent years, the strategic partnership between KKR and Axel Springer, and how KKR has helped shape AI transformation across its portfolio, both at Axel Springer and beyond. Before we jump in, a quick note, as you may know, at hy we've worked with more than 30 different private equity funds and even more of their portfolio companies on value creation strategies, with a strong focus on pricing and AI enablement. So if you'd like to learn more after you've listened to the podcast, feel free to reach out directly to me via email at pricing@hy.co, that's pricing@hy.co. And now let's dive straight into the live recording with Philipp Freise and Julian Deutz. I hope you enjoy the discussion as much as I did. So have fun. Thank you all for coming this early morning. You've probably all had the choice between 27 other events, but you chose us. So thank you, first of all, for coming. And thank you as well to Philipp and to Julian for coming here that early, and yeah, sharing some knowledge and some discussion around private equity value creation and of course artificial intelligence in PE and in value creation. So for those who don't know me, my name is Sebastian, Sebastian Voigt. I'm a partner and co-CEO at hy. And before we start the actual discussion, I would like to quickly introduce our company because you probably know KKR, you know Axel Springer, but maybe raise your hands, who of you actually knows hy? Oh, that's good. We can keep it short. Hey, that's my advertising block. You know, Axel Springer makes revenues from advertising, from subscription, formerly from classifieds, so it's one of our major blocks. I have to take that. So thanks, again, we have a lot of funds here today. I think not all the logos of your companies are on the slide, but I think it's nevertheless very impressive how much assets under management we got under one roof today, apart from the assets that are Axel Springer's anyway. Today, we want to talk about AI-driven value creation in private equity. Of course, we want to talk a little bit about the Axel Springer and KKR strategic partnership. So I will moderate the first 20-ish minutes and then Jan takes over. Jan is our partner at hy for artificial intelligence, so he will do the real hard questions on AI. And if time allows, we also go for some questions from the audience. We close the panel at around 9:20, so you'll have time to go wherever you need to go afterwards. If you have more time, you can stay here, breakfast buffet is open, nice network, and I'm also happy to show everybody the Journalistenclub on the other side of this floor, where we actually wanted to do the event, but you see it, too many people showed up, so we moved it here to the main stage. So what are we doing at hy? Eight years ago, we founded a consultancy out of Axel Springer, which has four big topics today. So we help people on pricing, on sales and commercial excellence, on artificial intelligence, and in business building. I'm the pricing guy, so if you ever have the feeling that one of your companies hasn't increased prices for

Sebastian Voigtquite a while, that inflation goes above price improvement, then I'm your guy. If you look for AI improvements in any of your companies, or in the fund structures themselves, Jan is your guy. And also, maybe hands up to my colleagues, you can also go to Frank, who manages commercial excellence, or Sebastian and Anne, who are from the business building team.

In pricing, I have to say this once, but there was this survey from brand eins and Statista two months ago, where we have been named by more than 2,000 management or company leaders that we are the best consultancy in pricing in Germany. So, you may, yeah, Simon-Kucher, yeah, is there, but not on one, BCG, McKinsey. I'm very proud of that, I have to say it, and I have to shout it out every, every time I see it. We worked in the past years with round about 30 different funds. Your logo may be on the slide. In case it's not on the slide, we can fix that. So, again, let's talk after the panel.

So, let's start with the panel about value creation and AI, and I wanted to start the discussion, actually, starting to discuss the deal that basically materialized in 2019. And then I realized, in my research, that you two know each other way, way longer than 2019. So, you were CEO and CFO of Venturepark in 2000. So, Philipp, what was Venturepark?

Philipp FreiseYeah, it's blast from the past, because a gentleman from Plug and Play just talked to us and told us about what he does and showed us his little thing, and it was exactly what we did in 2000. It was Europe's first incubator. So, the idea of combining capital with hands-on support, and you know, that was the crazy dot-com period, and the rest is history, really. We stayed friends. He went on to do great things. I'm still kind of screwing around, trying to make investments, but above all, it was a great experience, because we, you know, very much, in the heyday of the Neuer Markt, learned how to appreciate entrepreneurship, distinguish real talent from not so great talent, technology, the impact of technology on businesses, capital, etc. So, it was a gigantic experience, really, for that.

Sebastian VoigtSo, Philipp, you're the Co-Head of the European part of KKR. You've done an amount of very impressive deals in the past, ProSiebenSat.1, Axel Springer, obviously. I noticed a few more, GfK, Leonine, Mediawan. So, what is your main focus when you touch base new investments? How do you find them? And what's your idea?