Johannes "Joop" Adrianus van den Ende (born 23 February 1942) is a Dutch media tycoon, theatrical producer, co-founder of Endemol and founder/owner of Stage Entertainment.
Joop van den Ende (Amsterdam 1942) has produced many plays, musicals, revues, films and television programmes over the last 35 years. In 1969 he started his career as an independent theatre and television producer. Under his guidance, a new musical tradition developed in the Netherlands. Hundreds of television productions were created in his own studio complex in Aalsmeer.
In 1993 Van den Ende and his competitor John de Mol created television production company Endemol, combining the efforts of their respective TV companies. Endemol is the producer of popular TV formats such as Big Brother and is active in 25 countries on five continents.
Endemol was listed on the stock exchange in 1996 and was sold to the Spanish telecom giant Telefónica in 2000 for €5.5bn. (In 2007 Endemol was sold on to a consortium including Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister of Italy, as well as John de Mol, in a deal valued at €2.6bn).
In 1998, before the sale of the company, Joop van den Ende bought the Endemol live entertainment division. This was the beginning of Stage Entertainment, an international entertainment group with theatres, productions, offices and ticket sale organisations in eight countries.
In 2001 he established the VandenEnde Foundation with his wife, Janine, creating one of the largest Dutch private funds. The Foundation supports a wide variety of activities in the arts, theatre, and education fields.
Together with his business partner Hubert Deitmers, Van den Ende is also active as an investor. Van den Ende & Deitmers Venture Capitalist Partners focuses on West European cross media companies via two venture capital funds with a total value of 150 million Euro.
From 2005 to 2008, Joop van den Ende was active in real estate development through Living City Property Performance, a joint venture with Trimp & Van Tartwijk. Living City concentrated in mixed-use development and urban regeneration schemes around theatres, and was active in the Netherlands and abroad. In April 2008 Van den Ende decided to end his involvement in Living City following a fraud investigation directed at his partners in the venture. Van den Ende is still actively involved in building the new De La Mar theatre in central Amsterdam through the VandenEnde Foundation, and the VandenEnde Theatre on the Amsterdam 'Zuidas' through his company Stage Entertainment.
In 2008, he is #843 on Forbes' list of billionaires and one of the richest people in the Netherlands.
From : www.wikipedia.org
