Independent News & Media PLC – results for year ending 31 December 2012

April 26, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

inmIndependent News & Media PLC has announced the Group’s results for the 12 months ended 31 December 2012. A detailed presentation on these results is available on the Group’s website inmplc.com.

The Group’s interim management statement in respect of the period from 1 January 2013 to 19 April 2013 is also published today.

Financial & Operating Highlights

  • Revenues of €539.7 million, down 3.3%
  • Operating Profit, pre-exceptionals, of €59.7 million, down 20.9% – delivering an operating margin of 11.1%
  • EBITDA, pre-exceptionals, of €80.7 million (including dividends received of €11.1 million) for FY 2012 – down 21%
  • Operating Costs were reduced by €2.5 million despite inflationary cost increases in South Africa in excess of 5.7%, the year-on-year impact of the acquisition of International House Dublin (‘IHD’) and the launch of GrabOne. Excluding IHD and GrabOne, costs reduced by €9.2 million
  • Continued progress in digital, with revenue growth of 21.4% mainly driven by the successful rollout and full year impact of GrabOne in the Island of Ireland
  • Net exceptional charges after tax totalled €273.7 million primarily driven by non-cash asset impairments in APN and Island of Ireland and costs relating to headcount reductions of over 200 in 2012

INM results 2012-1

Strategic Highlights

A restructuring agreement has been reached with its banking syndicate, to effect an amendment to its Master Facility Agreement, which will become effective following the sale of its South African business.

INM says –  this will put it on a secure financial footing with a sustainable debt level, on completion of all stages. On full completion, the new bank deal will give INM the flexibility to reposition itself to embrace opportunities in the digital arena and deliver further significant cost reductions, whilst continuing to invest in the Group’s core print titles.

INM recently announced the sale of its South Africa business for R2 billion (approx. €167m) before expenses – all net proceeds will be used to pay down bank debt.

More details (London Stock Exchange)

Ireland, Dublin

Related articles:

Posted in Company Results, Content Media, Publishers, ~Europe. Tags: , , , . Leave a Comment »

Publicis unveils €3 billion acquisition plan

April 26, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

PublicisAccording to reporting by Campaign, Publicis Groupe unveiled a six-year growth plan at an event for investors at LBi London’s offices on Tuesday. Jean-Michel Etienne, the chief financial officer of Publicis Groupe, said that “the envelope [for acquisitions] will be €500 million each year.” LBi is a digital communications agency acquired by Publicis last year valuing LBi at approximately €416 million.

Deals are likely to focus on digital technology businesses in markets including Brazil, Russia, China, Turkey and India as well as countries in South East Asia.

Publicis has been highly acquisitive over the last few years. See related articles below.

France, Paris & UK, London

Related articles:

 

Posted in Marketing/Advertising, News, ~Europe. Tags: , , . Leave a Comment »

IPC Media sells Horse Magazine to MyTimeMedia

April 25, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

Horse-June13rIPC Media has sold Horse magazine to MyTimeMedia. Horse was published within the IPC Inspire portfolio.

MyTimeMedia publishes specialist hobby magazines , including popular titles such as Hi Fi News, Home Cinema Choice, Homemade with Love, Stamp Magazine, The Woodworker and Model Engineer.

IPC Inspire managing director Paul Williams says: “MyTimeMedia is passionate about hobbies, so it is the perfect new home for Horse.  My personal thanks go to each member of the team for the great work they have done on Horse and I wish them all the very best for the future.”

MyTimeMedia CEO Owen Davies adds: “We are delighted to welcome Horse magazine and its staff to our business. The magazine will be a perfect fit with our print portfolio and we look forward to developing the website to increase its reach within the equestrian community.”

UK, London

Related articles

 

Posted in Content Media, Publishers, ~Europe. Leave a Comment »

nCrowd Acquires Tippr

April 25, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

ncrowdnCrowd, Inc., a daily deals business and the Atlanta-based parent company of social commerce websites HalfOffDepot.com and CrowdSavings.com, has purchased the assets of Seattle-based Tippr.com and Groupalicious.com.

Brian Conley, CEO of nCrowd, stated that the acquisition was nCrowd’s largest to date. “The addition of Tippr and Groupalicious brings tippr-logo-230x69our active subscriber base to over 3.2 million in the U.S,” said Conley.

Over the past two years, nCrowd has purchased the assets of more than 20 U.S. daily deal sites in order to attain a broad audience for its proprietary Automated Internet Marketing (AIM) platform.

According to Conley, the acquisition of Tippr and Groupalicious solidifies nCrowd as the third largest domestic online player in the localgroupalicious-logo coupon space, behind Groupon and LivingSocial.

USA, Atlanta, GA

Posted in Content Media, e-Commerce, Internet Media, ~North America. Leave a Comment »

GetYourGuide acquires Gidsy

April 24, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

gidsyGetYourGuide, a spin-off of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and an online portal for tours and activities at destinations across the globe, has acquired Gidsy. Gidsy is a Berlin-based, peer-to-peer platform for discovering local experiences and things to do. GetYourGuide will integrate Gidsy’s marketplace of  experiences and make them bookable on www.getyourguide.com. Gidsy’s full team will join GetYourGuide. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Gidsy has been backed by Sunstone Capital, Index Ventures and by names such as Werner Vogels, Christophe Maire and Ashton Kutcher.

“GetYourGuide is very excited to gain Gidsy’s great expertise and know-how in the world of online tours andgetyourguide activities,” said Johannes Reck, CEO of GetYourGuide. “By combining Gidsy’s proven excellence in design and expertise in building engaging mobile and social experiences with GetYourGuide’s fast-growing web platform and strong distribution network, we are positioned to completely transform the way travel activities are discovered, bought and sold. Thanks to this move, GetYourGuide is providing consumers with an unmatched resource for  finding and booking travel experiences.”

Switzerland, Zurich & Germany, Berlin

Posted in Content Media, Internet Media, ~Europe. Tags: , . Leave a Comment »

Google acquires Wavii for $30M

April 23, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

waviiGoogle Inc has acquired natural language processing startup Wavii for around $30 million in cash. Google outbid Apple who wanted the company for its voice-activated personal assistant Siri division.

It is only one month ago that Fusion DigiNet reported Yahoo had acquired mobile news aggregator Summly,  Wavii’s main competitor, for a similar amount.

The Wavii team, including founder Adrian Aoun, will  relocate to Google’s Knowledge Graph division Mountain View, California.google

USA, Mountain View, California & Seattle, WA

Related articles:

Posted in Content Media, Internet Media, Mobile Apps, ~North America. Leave a Comment »

DealMates acquires I Love Discounts

April 22, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

dealmatesDigital News Asia is reporting that DEAL Mates Sdn Bhd has acquired I Love Discounts, a move that sees Dealmates, which claims to be Malaysia’s No 1 flash sales site, boost its current 500,000 members by an additional 250,000.ilovediscounts

I Love Discounts’ current forecast revenue is an estimated RM7 million (US$2.3 million). The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

I Love Discounts was founded in 2010 by partners Edwin Koh, Andy Teh, Davie Saw and Desmund Hang, as Ilovediscounts.my under Aeterno Sdn Bhd.

The agreement was signed between both parties in February 2013.

Full story

Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur

Posted in Content Media, e-Commerce, Internet Media, ~Asia. Tags: , , . Leave a Comment »

ITV acquires The Garden

April 22, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

itvITV plc is to acquire 100% of the multi-award winning independent producer, The Garden, the company behind 24 Hours in A&E and Inside Claridge’s.

ITV will pay an upfront cash consideration of £18m with a further capped cash payment contingent on The Garden’s future performance.  The additional consideration is only payable on the delivery of significant profit growth over the next five years.  In 2012 The Garden made an operating profit of £2.5m. 

The Garden’s Chief Executives, Nick Curwin and Magnus Temple, said: “The values and ethos of The Garden will remain unchanged, as will our appetite for innovation, our insistence on delivering to the highest standards and our focus on the key relationships we’ve built up over the years. Being part of ITV will help us grow further in the UK and, in particular, to achieve our international ambitions. We will be working more closely with ITVS whilst continuing to concentrate as hard as ever on our important relationships with Channel 4 and the BBC. We are both totally committed to this new venture and we look forward to many successful and exciting years ahead with our new partners.”

UK, London

Related articles

Posted in Broadcasting, Content Media, ~Europe. Tags: , . Leave a Comment »

Eniro acquires majority holding in blog network Bloggerfy

April 20, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

eniroEniro, one of the largest search companies in the Nordic region and Poland, is acquiring a majority holding in Bloggerfy for SEK 0.5 M from FameAds Sweden. Bloggerfy is one of the Nordic region’s largest blog networks.  Eniro will control 51% of Bloggerfy, FameAds Sweden will control the remaining 49%.

Bloggerfy develops and operates sales of sponsored links and banners for bloggers that are linked to the bloggerflynetwork in Sweden and Norway. The network currently comprises approximately 65,000 registered bloggers in Sweden and 8,500 bloggers in Norway. In total, the network has approximately 2.5 million unique visitors per week, of whom about one million are expected to increase traffic on Eniro’s search services.

“Today, blogger trends are rapidly reflected in corporate sales. With Bloggerfy we can use the power of bloggers’ influence on purchasing patterns to a direct benefit for Eniro’s customers,“ says Sara Kullgren, SVP Group Products and Services at Eniro.

Sweden, Stockholm

Posted in Content Media, Internet Media, Marketing/Advertising, ~Europe. Tags: , , . Leave a Comment »

Euromoney Institutional Investor acquires a majority stake in the Centre for Investor Education in Australia

April 19, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

Euromoney logoEuromoney Institutional Investor PLC, the international online information and events group has acquired  a 75% stake in the Centre for Investor Education (CIE).

Based in Melbourne, Australia, CIE was founded in 1997 and is a provider of investment forums for senior CIEexecutives of superannuation funds and global asset management firms.  Principal events include the Chief Investment Officers Symposium and the Major Market Players Symposium, both held annually in Australia, as well as the International Investing Symposium which was held in Tokyo earlier this month.  CIE was acquired in 2010 from its founder, Melda Donnelly, by Erling Sorensen and Jamie Nemtsas who have expanded its portfolio of events and will remain shareholders in CIE until December 2015.

The acquisition is expected to be earnings enhancing for Euromoney in financial year 2013. Euromoney has paid an initial A$14.4 million (£9.9 million) cash consideration for a 75% interest in CIE, to be adjusted up or down dependent on CIE’s results for the year to December 2013.  Euromoney will acquire the remaining 25% of CIE’s equity in two instalments based on CIE’s profits for the years to December 2014 and 2015.  The acquisition will be funded from Euromoney’s existing committed borrowing facility.  CIE recorded an unaudited pre-tax profit of A$1.5million (£1.0 million) on revenues of A$4.3 million (£2.9 million) for the year to December 2012.

“We are delighted to acquire CIE,” said Richard Ensor, Chairman of Euromoney.  “Euromoney expects to benefit from the rapid growth of Australia’s asset management industry.  This acquisition of the high-quality CIE business gives us the opportunity to consolidate further our position in this premium segment of the events market.  We look forward to working with Erling Sorensen and Jamie Nemtsas to develop CIE further.”

UK, London & Australia, Melbourne

Related articles

Posted in Conference/Exhibitions/Events, Content Media, Internet Media, Market Data & Information, Publishers, ~Europe, ~Oceana. Tags: , , , . Leave a Comment »
« Older posts
Newer posts »