The Bauers - who are they?

When German publishing magnate Heinz Bauer snapped up Emap earlier this year, senior executives barely had a chance to shake hands with their new employers before one thing was made clear: the first rule of working for Bauer is that you don't talk about working for Bauer.

Given the size of the company - in 2007 it was projected to turn over €1.79bn - it is surprising just how little leaks out of Bauer; publicly available information could fit on a side of A4. In fact, one morning after the takeover, Emap employees found a company biography of exactly that size on their desks: Bauer is a family-run company that owns 238 magazines in 15 countries and is now the largest consumer magazine publisher in the UK. It has TV and radio interests internationally too, with 12 million listeners in the UK following the Emap acquisition - and Magic in particular is now performing well at breakfast time with Neil Fox. They have been told little else since.

Former Emap employees are not alone in wondering about the Bauers - since the company agreed to aquire Emap in December last year, the magazine and radio industries have been speculating about Bauer's plans for its UK acquisitions. But little has actually happened: two Emap magazines, First and NW (formerly New Woman) closed in February, but that decision had been in the pipeline long before Bauer took over. "It was just a case of Bauer ratifying the decision really," said one source.

A few executives have moved on, but it seems to be business as usual. Q magazine is being revamped, according to sources, and the firm is working hard on further integrating the magazines with their websites and radio stations. But Bauer HQ refuses to elaborate: "Our ambitions for the business remain the same; to be media innovators who create and deliver influential brands that connect audiences with excellent content wherever, whenever and however they want it."

But if the company is remaining tight-lipped about plans for its magazines and radio stations, it is even tighter lipped about the family behind Bauer.

Many Bauer senior executives are made to sign a non-disclosure agreement on departure - and when MediaGuardian asked to interview Heinz Bauer, the firm's owner and chair since taking over from his father in 1963, following the £1.14bn acquisition earlier this year, spokesman Christian Sommer said: "That will not be possible. Bauer does not give interviews, ever. Each Christmas he holds a short press conference in Hamburg, where he gives out a few basic details on what the firm has been doing that year, and that is all."

As the chairman of a wholly family-owned, private firm, which was started by his great-grandfather in 1875, of course, he doesn't even have do that. And according to one senior Bauer source: "They guard their privacy incredibly jealously and take it very seriously. They are a private company in every sense of the word."

Lori Miles, who left Bauer in 2004 after a 15-year stint working for the company during which she launched several magazines including Take A Break and TVChoice, is one of the few former employees happy to talk on the record. "I have met Mr Bauer. He is a very shy man; that's probably why he has such a low profile," says Miles."He is softly spoken and is a proper, charming gentleman. But despite being quiet, there is no doubt when you meet him that he is a powerful man. Do you know that phrase, 'he speaks quietly, but he carries a big stick'? Well, that's Mr Bauer."

A few months after the Emap deal, Bauer journalists in the UK said that few, if any, of the editors of what were Emap's prize possessions - super-selling consumer magazines such as Heat, FHM and Closer - had met Bauer, though the press office said that some senior managers and editors attended a Bauer conference in Hamburg in April. What is clear is that the key editors were taken for lunch in the UK by Saskia Bauer, the youngest of the four Bauer daughters (all of whom work for the firm - although in what capacity is debated.)

According to several senior sources, at these lunches Saskia was not introduced as a Bauer employee, but as her father's emissary. "As far as we've been told, she doesn't have an official role," said one. Others are adamant she was the architect of the Emap deal. All the Bauer press office will say is: "[Saskia] assists her father across the entire Bauer portfolio, not just Bauer Consumer Media."

Still only in her late 20s, Saskia is the daughter thought to be most likely to take over her father's job when he eventually retires. However, this may not be for some time - at 68, Bauer is said to remain an extremely smart and fit man. At his annual press conference last Christmas he emphasised he was not yet ready to retreat to an "altenteil" (a cottage on an estate reserved for parents). As for Bauer's other daughters, Nicola, one of the middle daughters, edits German gossip magazine In Touch; Mirja, the eldest, is publisher of German title Life & Style - her husband, Sven-Olaf Reimer, is in charge of Bauer's online division; and Yvonne also works for the family in an executive role.

But despite his daughters being on hand, Bauer is very much in the driving seat. According to one source, he flies over to London about once a month to check on the radio business, and went from desk to desk in at least one of the radio offices three months ago, introducing himself. "I have spoken to Bauer at length about why he bought Emap and he says that actually it was the radio side of the business that they were most interested in," said the source. "They are quite interested in the idea of taking a brand and transferring it across platforms, and in Europe Emap was a good example of doing it well. I think that was one of the core things that they were interested in."

So while the brouhaha over the Emap sale focused on the magazines, it was the radio operation that held most allure for the Bauers, who previously only had minor radio interests with some stations in Poland. Another of the family's interests is flying: both Bauer and his wife have pilot's licences and own several planes and helicopters. Famously, Bauer once personally flew workers over a picket line during a strike. "I remember going on one business trip to New Jersey, where Bauer flew us all over the Atlantic in his private plane," says Miles. "He was the pilot and Mrs Bauer was the air hostess, serving us snacks and champagne."

But, despite these extravagances, the Bauers have a reputation for parsimony, if not stinginess. "We don't count beans, we count half beans," one German editor told Focus magazine. A Bauer insider told the Guardian that while Bauer is at No 410 on the Forbes rich list, with a net worth of £1.9bn, he is not an ostentatious man. "Whenever he used to visit New York his people had to make special arrangements so that he never found out the true cost of his hotel room. They would make arrangements in advance with the hotel management to change the room tariff on the back of his door."

But editors from the "old" Bauer fold - which includes Bella and Take A Break - say no expense was spared on editorial. "They let the creative people be creative and the money people do the money. I was once told 'Don't you ever tell me that you could have done something better if you had had more money'," says Miles.

An insider recalls the time a UK team went over to Germany to pitch a launch to Bauer. "Before they even had chance to get out the dummies, he interrupted them and said 'will it work?'. They said yes, showed him the numbers, and without even looking through the dummies, he gave them the go-ahead."Bauer will take risks, as long as he is confident of the numbers.

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