Deutscher Fachverlag (dfv), which is domiciled in Frankfurt am Main, is one of the largest independent specialist media companies in Europe. With its subsidiaries and shareholdings in Germany and abroad, the publishing company produces about 90 specialist periodicals that provide relevant professional information for important economic sectors. Many of the titles are market leaders in the respective industries. The portfolio is supplemented by over 90 digital products, numerous B2B communities and a large number of specialist book titles. Seminars, conventions, trade fairs as well as symposiums round off the programme. dfv has 890 employees and achieved a sales turnover of 133.3 million Euros in 2011.

In total, four dfv titles are ranked among the TOP 10 specialist periodicals with the best advertising sales figures: Lebensmittel Zeitung, TextilWirtschaft, HORIZONT and AHGZ - Allgemeine Hotel- und Gastronomie-Zeitung (source: HORIZONT, No. 14/2012). No other publishing company has as many titles with such a high ranking.

Wilhelm Lorch founded dfv in Stuttgart in September 1946 under the name “Neuer Fachverlag”. It was not until 1948 when it moved to Frankfurt that the publishing company was renamed “Deutscher Fachverlag”. The first specialist periodical was released in the founding year: TextilWirtschaft. Since then, dfv has continuously expanded its range of publications and enlarged it by means of numerous start-ups, purchases and shareholdings. Today the publishing group has a presence in six countries and distributes its products worldwide.

The way that professional decision makers make use of media is changing. Digital options as well as business sector events promoting direct exchange have long since become a part of the portfolio of modern media brands, in addition to printed newspapers and periodicals. dfv is actively shaping that process and has systematically tailored its range of services to the needs of its target groups to ensure they have professionally relevant information at their fingertips via all channels.

Social commitment, especially providing active support and encouragement to young talent, has a long tradition at dfv. Thus, the specialist publishing company has initiated three industry-specific foundations that are dedicated to vocational and supplementary training for talented young people in the textile and food industries as well as the communication and agency sector.

The foundation assets of “Wilhelm-Lorch-Stiftung” (1988), a foundation that was named after the founder of the specialist periodical TextilWirtschaft and thus of Deutscher Fachverlag, currently amounts to about 1.82 million Euros. To date, it has awarded a total of more than one million Euros in financial assistance ( www.wilhelm-lorch-stiftung.de ).

The “Stiftung Goldener Zuckerhut” foundation (1990) currently has foundation assets of roughly 1.66 million Euros. Up to and including 2011, 990,000 Euros have been distributed to 194 prize winners in the food industry ( www.stiftung-goldener-zuckerhut.de ).

The foundation called HORIZONT-Stiftung was founded on the occasion of the 60 th anniversary of dfv in the year 2006: It supports talented young people in the communication, media and advertising industry. In 2012 two prize winners were commended with 7,500 Euros each ( www.horizont-stiftung.de ).

For several years, dfv has been intensively involved in marketing the genre of “specialist media”. In this conjunction it founded the internet platform www.forumb2b.de, which presents arguments for specialist media as an important source of information and efficient advertising vehicle. The results of numerous studies on the subject of specialist media are summarised there.