BPN 1611: Dutch Book publisher VBK independent again

The Dutch book publisher Veen Bosch & Keunig (VBK) will be split off the holding company NDC/VBK per November 1, 2012. The company will become the largest independent publishing company of general books in the Netherlands. The company has been bought by the management, interested employees, while the ING Bank has taken a minority share. VBK had been put on the market since March of this year.

The move is the logical consequence of the decision made by NDC/VBK to split up the company in three independent activities: daily newspapers, house-to-house newspapers and books.  The decision meant to be the end of a dream. NDC has been a rich publishing company in the North of the Netherlands. In 2001 NDC bought the book publishers VBK. Due to the economic dip first the newspapers experienced acquisition problems with advertisements and the book publishers with the sales of books.

In 2007 the newspaper and book holding NDC/VBK bought the educational publishing company Thieme Meulenhoff from PCM and combined it with its own educational division, Veen Bosch & Keuning-educational. The new combination had 400 employees and an annual turn-over 100 million euro.The move to make VBK independent will most likely have consequences for Thieme Meulenhoff.
 

Per September 1, 2012 VBK has sold eBook.nl to ePagine. This Belgian company will take a majority in the company, while VBK will keep a minority share. VBK had already concluded that the retail activities did not fit with the VBK publishing activities, despite the fact that eBook.nl has a market share of 10 per cent of Dutch language eBook sales. ePagine is already some years active in the eBook segment and cooperated with eBook.nl. ePagine is part of Tite Live, a company with a turn-over of 10 million euro and about 100 employees.

BPN 1065 The first post-Apax annual report of PCM

Last year was an annum horribilis for the Dutch newspaper and book conglomerate PCM. The private equity company Apax had left PCM in 2007, taking 140 million euro in profits along in its exit after four years and leaving the conglomerate with a negative own capital. This year the figures of PCM look rosier, but the future of the conglomerate is still uncertain.

The situation has changed this year by using a set of tricks. By converting the deferred loans into shares the own capital of the conglomerate is now 271 million euro and positive again. And the debt has been halved to 316 million euro; a sum which has to decrease in the coming year. The turn-over slightly rose last year to 644 million euro and the company result grew almost twenty percent to 45 million euro.

The main share of the revenues still comes from newspaper sales and subscriptions as well as advertisements. Deducting the turn-over of the book division (96 million euro) and of the educational division (64,5 million euro), the turn-over from newspapers and newspaper related activities is 483,5 million euro. Volkskrant and NRC Handelsblad are the money makers, while AD, a joint venture with Wegener, is positive. For the newspapers PCM is afraid of the paper prices and the price for newspaper distribution; it does not expect any re-organisation in the newspaper sector. PCM expects the free newspaper Dag, a joint venture of KPN and PCM, to cost another 10 million euro in the coming year, before it shows black figures. Dag recently underwent a restyling and gets now editorial input from De Volkskrant; it is no longer a red rag.

PCM is taking some accountancy measures. After the Apax exit, the company was forced to an investigation by the Enterprise Chamber of the Amsterdam Court. Now PCM has announced that it will report its annual figures according to the international accountancy method IFRS. It will be done for transparency and for comparison with competitors.

PCM has no plans for mergers or acquisitions. Last year the merger with NDC/VBK was called off. The coming year will be used to consolidate business. PCM does not aim at a broadening of its base any longer to decrease the dependence on newspaper. For the time being it will remain a newspaper and book conglomerate. As mentioned in yesterday’s posting the educational division ThiemeMeulenhoff will sold off and the money received will be used to relieve the debt.

Blog Posting Number: 1065

Tags: newspaper

BPN 1064 Another Dutch educational Publisher for sale

ThiemeMeulenhoff, the educational division of the Dutch newspaper and book conglomerate PCM, is for sale. That was a surprise announcement at the presentation of the annual report.

ThiemeMeulenhoff had a turn-over of 64,5 mln euro, growing 5 percent. The division is good for 10 percent of the total turnover of PCM Publishers. The division employs 255 people. PCM withdraws from the educational market as the company expects more investment, while ThiemeMeulenhoff does not have the scale to justify these investments.

PCM Publishers limits its activities to newspapers and books for the coming years. It will use the money its gets for ThiemeMeulenhoff to consolidate its position after the Apax affair, which left the company with a great loss. It is funny to see this decision of withdwawel from the educational field by the new board, after that the Apax dominated board had announced to sell off the book division and stick to the educational division.

So ThiemeMeulenhoff is one of the latest victim in the educational field. Just a month ago Sdu announced to sell its educational activities with a turn-over of 5 mln euro. Earlier VNU, Wolters Kluwer and Reed Elsevier sold their educational divisions.
Now only the division VBK Educatief with 150 employees is part of a newspaper and book conglomerate, NDC/VBK. Some time ago PCM and NDC/VBK were in merger talks, but they broke off.

The Dutch educational publishing landscape has been shaken dramatically over the past years. VNU sold its educational division Malmberg to a private equity fund, which found a home for the company with the Finnish publisher Sanoma. Wolters Kluwer sold its educational division to Bridgepoint Ltd. Also Reed Elsevier sold off its educational division. So now the consolidation race starts affect the smaller educational publishers. It is unclear what company will be eager to acquire the educational activities of Sdu. Will ThiemeMeulenhoff be acquired by Sanoma or NDC/VBK?

The changing of the landscape has been going on for some time. VNU, Wolters Kluwer and Reed Elsevier disposed of their educational divissions to specialise in resp. market data, legal and health and scientific and business information. But Sdu and ThiemeMeulenhoff dispose of their educational activities now that the Dutch government has decided to organise the free book acquisition for secondary schools.

Update 12/4/2008: NDC/VBK has shown interest in acquiring the educational division of PCM. Synergy between the two educational divisions would be an argument. The turn-over of the primary school sector rose 30 percent for ThiemeMeulenhoff. In the vocational sector the turn-over rose 17 percent.

Update: PCM Publishers, the Dutch newspaper and book holding, has sold its educational division Thieme Meulenhoff to NDC/VBK for an undisclosed sum. Thieme had a turn-over of 65 million euro in 2007; this was 10 per cent of PCM’s turn-over.

The newspaper and book holding NDC/VBK will combine Thieme Meulenhoff with its own educational division, Veen Bosch & Keuning-educational. The new combination will have 400 employees and an annual turn-over 100 million euro. Together with Malmberg Educational and Noordhoff Publishers the combination Veen Bosch & Keuning-educational will belong to the top three educational publishers in the Netherlands.

Blog Posting Number: 1064

Tags: education, educational publishing

BPN 1040 Sdu to sell off its educational activities

Another Dutch publisher is getting rid of its educational division. After VNU, Wolters Kluwer and Reed Elsevier sold their educational divisions, Sdu Publishers has indicated that their educational activity is up for sale. Sdu considers these activities no longer as core activities. In 2007 Sdu made a turn over of 5 million euro with these activities.

The educational title list consists of school books for secondary and higher vocational education in the field of ICT and technology; Sdu is market leader in those sections. However Sdu does no longer see those publications as core activity. Financially the activities are small in comparison to the company’s turn-over of 200 million euro in 2007. In terms of focus, the publishing house, the former government’s print office, profiles itself as a home for information professionals, especially in government. With the announcement of the sale, Sdu announced the acquisition of JobsRepublic.nl, an online job database operator for government, semi-government, provinces and municipalities.

Sdu is the latest Dutch publishing house selling its educational activities as non-core activities. VNU sold its educational division Malmberg to a private equity fund, which found a home for the company with the Finnish publisher Sanoma. Wolters Kluwer sold its educational division to Bridgepoint Ltd. Also Reed Elsevier sold off its educational division. These publishing companies have all chosen to be active in a specific field of professional information (VNU, now Nielsen in market data, Wolters Kluwer in legal and health, while Reed Elsevier is active in scientific information). Sdu has now chosen to disband the educational activities and focus on governmental information. Given its present composition of core activities it will mean that the section Business Information with a strong component of ICT will be the next section to be sold off. After the sale of Sdu’s educational activities, only the newspaper conglomerates PCM and NDC/VBK have educational divisions in their publishing mix. So far these conglomerates have not chosen for a specific focus and still have newspapers, books, including educational books and methods, magazines and capital intensive print plants.

In time and space, Sdu is late in abandoning the educational activities in order to grow to a more focussed publishing house. For PCM and NDC.VBK it will also be a question of time given the market size and politics in the Dutch educational market. There are roughly 22 million people who speak, read and write Dutch, mainly in The Netherlands and Belgium. Also politics is now meddling in publishing as the present government team intends to fund books for secondary school from September onwards; book packages will now have to be tendered according to European rules. This will make the marketing and selling of school books unnecessarily complicated; besides it will be difficult for small educational publishers to conquer a market share. It will also complicate the change-over from books to e-learning.

Blog Posting Number: 1040

Tags: education, educational publishing

Dutch newspapers on the move

There is a mixed bag of news in the Dutch newspaper World coming from various newspaper companies: Telegraaf Media Group, PCM (remember the postings Never a dull….), FD Media Group and Royal Wegener.

PCM
At last PCM has announced its intention to merge with NDC/VBK. Both companie will undertake a study of four months. The question is whether the two companies can merge. If so, it would be come a company with national and regional newspapers, with educational book companies as well as general book companies. Together the two companies would turn over 1 billion euro. The study will be directed by Mr Groenewegen CFO of PCM and Jan Roos chairman of NDC/VBK.

Comment: The two companies have the same structure. Both companies are overseen by foundations, looking after their ideal objectives. Together the companies would be the largest Dutch publishing company. However the question is whether the Dutch monopoly watchdog would allow the combination or ask the company to abandon parts of it.

Royal Wegener
This regional newspaper company, ready to be acquired by the UK company Mecom, has shown optimism about the display ad and classified ad market. The chairman of the board Jan Houwert reported the joint venture newspaper AD with PCM to be profitable now; Wegener has a 37 percent share in this venture. He also mentioned the new major shareholder Mecom, which holds 24 percent in Wegener. Mecom and Wegener hold talks, but these have not been conclusive yet. Mecom has shown interest in the acquiring Royal Wegener.

Comment: When Wegener is optimistic, be assured that things are looking up for the newspaper industry in The Netherlands, as the company is at the end of the national ad feeder line.

FD
The Dutch financial daily FD plans to launch a new online business publication next week together with the TV station RTL Nederland and the Norwegian publisher Schibsted. The name of the newspaper will be Z24. The online business newspaper will have an editorial staff of 12 people. The new publication, of which there will be no printed counterpart, aims at the target group of well educated men and women between 25 and 40 years old. The target group differs from its parent publication Het Financieele Dagblad that aims at business men and women. The co-operation of RTL Nederland, which has the business TV station RTLZ has not been formally confirmed yet. The co-operation with the Norwegian Schibsted is not a surprise as the FD group works already together with this newspaper in a business news consortium; besides one of the owners of FD, Mr Sijthoff, has a financial interest in the Norwegian publishing group.

Comment: This is an interesting project. FD Media Group has followed a cross-media strategy over the past years and has merged with Business News Radio into a successful media conglomerate. Now the media group is addressing a complete new target group with a daily online publication. Although the business newspaper has been in several consortia, usually in order to pick up ads, the media group now also goes into an editorial collaboration with a progressive Norwegian newspaper. FD Media Group has worked before with FD on an incidental basis, but now it looks like RTL Nederland is seeking co-operation with a newspaper and business radio group.

DAG PCM
PCM’s free daily DAG has appointed Bob Witman as the-editor-in-chief. He will be heading a 45 strong editorial staff and is responsible for all editorial information regardless of its platform (print, internet, mobile and narrowcasting. He was one of the strategists of the internet policy of the daily newspaper De Volkskrant. He is an experienced journalist and has experience with cross-media. Joris van Heukelom has been appointed as the director cross-media. He will be charged with the creative development and cross-media of DAG, the brand DAG and the creation of strategic partnerships with advertisers. DAG Media is a joint venture of PCM and KPN. (For those who understand have a look at the Adfolive movie).

Telegraaf
The newspaper company Telegraaf Media Group (TMG) and the broadcasting company SBS, in which TMG holds 20 percent of shares, will launch a multimedia platform for consumer news under the name of Wuz (an acronym for What u say, but than in Dutch) in the middle of June. Internet will be the core of the joint venture. Content mailed to the editorial staff can come online, in print, on mobile websites and in the SBS TV news programme. The target group is said to cover 2,2 million people online and 1,2 million TV viewers.

Comment: The national consumer newspapers are getting nervous again as PCM is preparing the launch of its free newspaper DAG. In order to distinguish themselves the newspaper are adding the epitheton ornans cross-media. It all started with the paid daily NRC.next, which started to use the adjective. PCM used the word when collaboration with the incumbent telco KPN was announced. Now also TMG is rushing to the new land of cross-media with Wuz.
It will be interesting to see how the concept of cross-media is going to realised with distinction. From the sound of the different press releases cross-media is no more than multi-channel. So far it sounds like there is no day-parting, no scaling of screens and no usage of the strong points of the various media. It will be interesting to return to this issue with half a year and research the cross-media concept as given shape by the various editorial staffs as well as the effects on the target audiences.

Blog Posting Number: 736

Tags: newspapers, cross-media

Never a dull moment at PCM

There is news again from PCM; but solid news this time. The Dutch newspaper and book publishing company has a new chairman of the board of directors. After all, but one of the board members have left, Mr Rob Bonnier has been appointed as the chairman, be it ad-interim.

The Foundation Democracy and Media, the major shareholder in the company, has appointed Bonnier, installing, at last, an experienced director. He finds Mr Caspar Broeksma, next to him as an ad-interim director.

Mr Bonnier has a lot of experience in the governance and management of stock quoted companies. He was the cfo of the paper company KNP BT from 1983 till 1997. Presently he is the chairman of the board of directors of DSB Bank and has some other directorships.

What is the governance and management state they find PCM in? The Foundation of Democracy and Media, after Apax’s exit, again the major shareholder of the company, needs shaping up with strong governors. The board of directors needs another two directors, as the old board has left, except for Mr Strengers. The daily management needs at least a new CEO, as now only Mr Bert Groenewegen, the financial man, is in function and is the last informed link to the company.

What do they find on their plate? Besides solving the immediate management situation, they will have to look into the merger talks that have been going on with the Foundation of Democracy and Media and the NDC/VBK, the Northern regional newspaper and national book publisher, since the beginning of the year. So far the CEO of NDC/VBK, Mr Jan Roos, has been tipped as the new chairman of the board of directors of the merger company PCM – NDC/VBK (my god what a name!).

On the other hand Mr Bonnier and Broeksma will find another problem on their plate. They will have to deal with the MNa, the Dutch monopoly watchdog. Their merger is going to be a major media concentration in Dutch newspaper world as well as in the book publishing world. MNa will have to consider the situation that after a merger there will be three major newspaper publishers: De Telegraaf, Royal Wegener and the PCM – NDC/VBK combination. De Telegraaf, a national newspaper company, wants to expand in broadcasting through its SBS link. Royal Wegener, a regional newspaper company, is being courted by the Europe oriented newspaper company MECOM. And the new combination has national and regional newspapers and will be dominant in book publishing. NMa might approve the merger, but with many condition.

So besides strengthening the governance structure of PCM, new daily management, most likely ad-interim, is needed immediately, while the new board members steer their merger plans passed the NMa. After a wild period at PCM, a new period might follow in which a solid strategic course for company can be set out in silence.

Blog Posting Number: 728

Tag: newspapers

Never a dull moment at PCM

PCM is many illusions poorer as well as a lot money. Yet it improves its revenue flow due to a financial reconstruction and despite the hefty bonuses for the top management (of course the results could have been better if the bonuses had been added to the final results).

It is unbelievable that after so much mismanagement and turmoil there is still a reasonable financial result. The newspaper and book publishing company had a turn-over in 2006 of plus 3,4 percent from 653 to 675 million euro. The netto loss went down from 51 million euro in 2005 to 31 million euro in 2006.

The positive results were mainly made in the newspaper sector and the educational division. In the newspaper sector the job advertisements brought in more money as the Dutch economy is in full swing. And extra revenues at 50 million euro came from the sale of the book publisher Bohn Stafleu Van Loghum to Springer.

But what is the real status. The newspaper companies keep on working and still have to realise heavy cuts in their budgets. This while the managers of Apax leave with a fat profit and the top management cashes, while it is still possible. Two top managers have left in the meantime, each taking 2 million euro for less than two years of work. The CFO, who stays on, has returned his bonus of 1 million euro. Also two members of the shareholders’ board have left (of course without a bonus). So there is a CFO and a chairman of the shareholders’ board left.

In order to pimp up the picture of the company, PCM expects for the future:
• It has a fine starting position to profit from the economic upswing and new developments in newspaper and book publishing;
• The advertisement sector is picking up again, but the newspaper will have to look to get into the competitive game of television and internet (in The Netherlands newspaper publishers are not allowed yet to possess television stations);
• The company will invest in new products such as the free paper DAG; it aims to develop a cross-media news platform to reach younger target groups and invest in a multimedia strategy for the present quality titles (read established audience; mind you: cross-media for youngsters and multimedia for the elderly!)
• The newspaper and book divisions need to work on improving the results (of course after handing out bonuses so generously);
• The book publishing division will remain part of PCM and no longer be put up for sale.

So what is happening today?
- PCM is still negotiating in silence with the newspaper an book publishing company NDC/VBK. Mr Jan de Roos of NDC/VBK is rumoured to be the new CEO of the merger.
- Mr Marcel Boekhoorn, proprietor of the free paper De Pers has put a claim on the desk of PCM for 10 million euro. This claim represents the damage caused by PCM when the company was talking to Mr Boekhoorn about collaborating in De Pers project, but broke off talks and left promises unfulfilled..

Tomorrow there will be more on the 10 million euro claim and the project De Pers.

Blog Posting Number: 723

Tags: newspapers, cross-media, multimedia

Never a dull moment at PCM

Hardly has the private equity company Apax closed the door to the premises of the publishing company PCM and made off with their financial spoils or the new owner, who was the owner before Apax, let the world know that they are in charge again.

Apax is out now. And the other shareholders, foundations, are in charge again just like they were before Apax was invited in. Those shareholders will look back at the Apax era and most likely shake their heads. What did it do for the newspaper and book publishing company?
- NRC.next is only tangible product, which just celebrated its first anniversary;
- One board member went out during the Apax regime: Mr Theo Bouwman;
- Two new board members came in during the Apax regime: Ton aan de Stegge and Philip Alberdingk Thijm;
- A free daily was announced in cooperation with a free daily which has been published in the meantime; PCM is now working on its own free publication;
- For the rest, Apax has financially reshaped PCM, but the company will have to pay off the loans for a long time.

So now the foundations are in charge again and they let it know to the world. They sent off Mr Alberdingk Thijm immediately. He had successfully operated at the Dutch financial daily Het Financieele Dagblad, where he shaped a cross-media operation, with print, radio and internet. According to the foundations he was unable to pull off the same trick for PCM. But he walks off at least 2 million euro richer, but of course his name in tatters. And also Mr Aan de Stegge will be slaughtered. He has been asked to stay on for another half year until a new chairman has been found.

All this turmoil normally leads to a period with no strategy or a strategy recalled. Mr Aan de Stegge had already announced that newspapers and education were the spearpoints of the strategy. The book division, except the educational section, could be sold, he said. But surprise, surprise PCM (read the foundations) are negotiating a merger with NDC/VBK, a newspaper and book publisher. Their profiles are quite similar. Both are in the newspaper and book business. PCM is in the national newspapers, while NDC/VBK is in the business of regional newspapers. Both companies have a book publishing division. PCM is heavily mortgaged, while NDC/VBK is well financed. The company have been in talks already for months and are already talking about board members. Rumour has it that the chairman of NDC/VBK, Jan de Roos, will be named the new chairman.

But these merger talks could take some time. Discussions about the cross-ownership in the media are certainly coming up. The competition watchdog will have look into the matter. It might be that the watchdog will ask to sell particular parts. In this way the company would become a conglomerate of national newspapers, with regional newspapers in the North of the Netherlands. But the book divisions would be a problem. Putting the two book divisions together would produce the largest book publishing conglomerate in The Netherlands. There will be two reactions to this. The competition watchdog might ask to sell some companies or some book publishers might step out of the conglomerate and start their own company, as happened with the PCM book publishing companies.

For the immediate future there are two operational projects. PCM will finally launch their own free newspaper, named Dag (translated Day or Goodbye). There are high expectations about the project as PCM is working together with the incumbent telco KPN. PCM will produce the paper and be involved in the internet site; KPN will be involved in the internet site, but mainly work on the exploitation of the mobile/PDA and interactive television side. Another project will be the digital paper project by de Volkskrant and by NRC Handelsblad. As I remarked in the flash item of yesterday: this has been on the drawing boards for long. But now it seems to become reality. I personally would have combined it with the launch of the free newspaper Dag and experimented with day-parting. We will wait and see. I am eager to hear the price PCM is going to ask for the e-Reader and the subscription to the newspaper. Besides, with the merger of PCM and NDC/VBK, an expert company on e-Books and digital paper would be included: Pinion.

For the next half year there will not be a dull moment at PCM.

Blog Posting Number 709

Tags: newspapers, digital paper, e-Reader