Lehmanns Media

Who owns Lehmanns Media?

Lehmanns Media was owned by Lafayette Mittelstand Capital through Lafayette Mittelstand Capital Fund II (2017 vintage) from 2019 to 2021, exited via Trade Sale.

Buyer identity available on Pro.

Hand-verified · updated 2026-07-03

About Lehmanns Media

Lehmanns Media is a German specialist distributor and services provider for professional and scientific media, supplying printed and electronic books, journals and databases to universities, hospitals, corporations, public bodies and law and tax firms. The company is best known for scientific and medical literature and combines a network of academic bookstores with a central business-to-business procurement platform, e-book licensing with access management, library services and e-learning tools. It positions itself as a central procurement, distribution and access partner for institutional buyers of specialist content rather than as a general-interest retailer. Around the time of its private equity exit it operated roughly fourteen academic bookshops across Germany and Switzerland, supported by dedicated library-services and logistics centres, and employed about 250 staff.

Ownership journey

Lehmanns Media traces its roots to nineteenth-century academic bookselling, with antecedents including the Oscar Rothacker bookshop founded in Berlin in 1872 and the J. F. Lehmanns medical bookshop established in Munich in 1890, while the modern Lehmanns Media publishing arm dates from 1988. Lafayette Mittelstand Capital, investing through its Fund II, acquired the company in 2019. Lafayette held the business for a short ownership period focused on digital and institutional repositioning. In 2021 it exited the investment via a trade sale, the financial terms of which were not disclosed.

Under PE ownership

Under Lafayette's ownership the company was steered toward digital and institutional growth, sharpening its identity as a central procurement, distribution and use platform for printed and electronic professional media. It built out its business-to-business offering around the Le2B and e-procurement portals, alongside e-book licensing with access management and library and e-learning services for institutional clients. Lafayette also positioned the business through participations and strategic cooperations in further growth fields of digital scientific publishing and Open Access. By the 2021 exit the company operated a network of around fourteen specialist bookstores with supporting service and logistics centres and employed approximately 250 people, having repositioned from a traditional academic bookseller toward a hybrid specialist media and services group.