Bertelsmann is the limit case. Every other separation of ownership from control in this dataset is a matter of degree; this one goes all the way.
The 2025 corporate governance report states that 80.9% of the capital shares in Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA are held indirectly by foundations — Bertelsmann Stiftung, Reinhard Mohn Stiftung, BVG-Familienstiftung and BVG-Stiftung — and 19.1% indirectly by the Mohn family. Those two figures account for the entire capital.
Then the same report states that Bertelsmann Verwaltungsgesellschaft controls all voting rights at the general meetings of Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA and of Bertelsmann Management SE, the general partner.
Read those sentences together and the arithmetic is stark. Every share is owned by somebody who does not vote it. Every vote is cast by somebody who does not own a share.
A +100pp wedge, and what it costs to say so
This is the widest Control Wedge that can exist, and it needs a caveat that narrower ones do not.
The 100% voting figure is stated. The 0% economic figure is not — it is what remains once a disclosure of the capital holders adds up to the whole without mentioning BVG. That inference is recorded in the note beside the figures rather than buried here, because a reader who thinks it too strong should be able to see exactly where the number came from and discard it.
For contrast, Robert Bosch's Industrietreuhand posts a +92.99pp wedge on figures that are entirely quoted: the audited note says 0.01% of capital, in those words. Bosch's number is read; Bertelsmann's last digit is deduced. Both belong in the dataset. They do not carry identical warranties, and pretending otherwise would make the more careful one worth less.
Where control actually sits
BVG is controlled by a steering committee of six: three representatives of the Mohn family and three non-family members.
That sentence is the real profile. A company with revenues in the tens of billions, owned overwhelmingly by charitable foundations, has its entire voting power exercised by a committee on which one family holds half the seats. Not a majority — half. What breaks a tie among six, and how the three non-family members are chosen and removed, are the questions that decide who controls Bertelsmann, and neither is answered by the sources cited here.
It also means the control does not depend on the foundations at all. They own the company. They are, structurally, its most passive participants.
What is not established here
BVG's own capital share, as discussed. The steering committee's voting rules, tie-breaking, and appointment mechanism. And the arrangements between the four foundations, which are treated as a single 80.9% block in the disclosure but are four separate legal entities with four separate boards.