Posts by mwright

Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC (“Euromoney”), the international online information and events group, has agreed to acquire 100% of the equity of RISI, the leading price reporting agency (“PRA”) for the global forest products market. In its recent strategy update, Euromoney highlighted price discovery (the main activity of a PRA) as a key investment theme. The acquisition of RISI follows the acquisition in August last year of FastMarkets, a leading provider of real-time metals market pricing information, which has significantly enhanced Metal Bulletin’s position in price reporting.

Informa to pay £106m for Yachting Promotions Inc., further strengthening Global Exhibitions Division and increasing US market presence

Press release: RWS Holdings plc, a provider of intellectual property support services (patent translations, international patent filing solutions and searches), commercial translations and linguistic validation, is to acquire LUZ, Inc., a US based life sciences language services provider for $82.5 million. 

Trinity Mirror, the UK’s largest local newspaper group and publisher of the Daily Mirror, is eyeing further consolidation, as the industry races to tackle the long-term decline of print publishing. “We see ourselves as a consolidator in the newspaper industry and will continue to do so subject to tight financial returns,” said chief executive Simon Fox, as the group reported like-for-like print advertising revenues fell 18 per cent in 2016. Trinity is in early stage talks with Northern & Shell, the parent company of the Express newspaper titles and OK Magazine, which could lead to it taking a stake in some of the Richard Desmond-owned assets.

ESI Media has announced the launch of the London Evening Standard Food Month, a city-wide festival promoting the diversity of London’s food scene.

The festival will encompass hundreds of events throughout June and will include contributions from chefs, restaurants, food trucks, cafes and bars. The centrepiece of the festival will be the Night Market, an outdoor dining experience in a London park featuring up to 50 restaurants, food trucks, bars and live entertainment.

In December, UBM sold Ecobuild to its management for a nominal sum, incurring a total loss on disposal of £35.1m principally relating to the write-off of goodwill

Press Release: Haymarket Media Group today announces a new joint venture with Comexposium, one of the world’s leading event organisers.

The new partnership with Comexposium includes Haymarket’s Cereals and Fruit Focus exhibitions, the UK’s leading technical events for the arable farming and fruit industries respectively

Press Release: WPP announces that its wholly-owned marketing communications network, Ogilvy & Mather, has acquired a stake in its digital partner in Ireland, Eightytwenty Customer Experience Limited (“Eightytwenty”), market leader in the Irish digital communications industry

AXIO Group today announced that it has completed the sale of AXIO Aviation Holdings Ltd (“OAG”) to funds managed by Vitruvian Partners for approximately $215m.

The erosion in print ad sales kicked off at the beginning of 2016 and did not let up. In the fourth quarter alone, print sales dropped 20 per cent at the New York Times and at McClatchy, operator of 29 US daily papers. Gannett, owner of USA Today, reported a 15 per cent fall in the US and a 14 per cent decline at Newsquest, its UK chain. News Corp said the fall in print dragged total ad revenue down 29 per cent at News UK (publisher of The Sun and The Times), 20 per cent at Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones and 12 per cent at its Australian papers. The Financial Times and Tronc, the owner of the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, have also been hit.

Condé Nast has acquired social data and marketing platform CitizenNet to expand the media company’s audience targeting and data capabilities to its social platforms.

CitizenNet will be incorporated into Condé Nast’s data product “Condé Nast Spire,” which it launched last summer

Press Release: ASCENTIAL MEDIALINKLONDON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Ascential plc, the global business-to-business media company listed on the London Stock Exchange, today announced that it has agreed to acquire 100% of MediaLink, a U.S.-based advisory and business services firm

Axel Springer is to expand its mobile news service Upday from four to 16 countries in Europe this year, as the German media group accelerates its shift into digital publishing. Upday, a news aggregator that uses human editors as well as an algorithm to select news stories, was developed as part of an exclusive partnership with Samsung and launched in Germany, Poland, the UK and France last February.

egional publisher Iliffe Media has bought Velvet and IQ magazines from marketing agency Cubiqdesign for an undisclosed fee. The titles have been run by family team John and Gemma Treby for more than 10 years.

Roy Greenslade’s final blog: When I started this blog in 2006, Twitter was three months old and Facebook was on the verge of providing public access. Google was up and running, turning a profit, and just beginning to destroy the business model of newspapers

Press Release: Cello Group plc (AIM: CLL; “Cello”, the “Group” or the “Company), the healthcare focused strategic marketing group, is pleased to announce that it has raised £15.0 million (before expenses) by way of a placing of 15,463,919 new ordinary shares of 10 pence each (the “Placing Shares”) at a price of £0.97 per ordinary share (the “Placing”). The Placing, which was oversubscribed, has received strong support from both new and existing institutional shareholder. The Placing proceeds will in part be used to finance the acquisition of the assets of Defined Healthcare Research, Inc. and Cancer Progress, LLC (“Defined Health”), a business delivering scientific strategic advisory services to a wide range of US, European and global biotech and healthcare clients (the “Acquisition”). The proposed initial consideration for the Acquisition is US$5.75 million

Press release: CloserStill, recently ranked No 10 in the Sunday Times International FastTrack 200 of the UK’s fastest growing exporters, will incorporate iLearning Forum into its launch of Learning Technologies France exhibition and conference to be held on January 23rd and 24th 2018 at Espace Champerret in Paris.  

Publishing group to raise its exposure with bigger stake in Penguin Random House

Acquisition vehicle in talks to buy Groupe AB as content war hots up

Son of Vincent Bolloré gets more power at ad agency as tie-up with Vivendi seems near