From: TheStandardEurope.com
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Subject: INTELLIGENCER EUROPE: Gruner + Jahr poised to buy Fast Company
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THE INDUSTRY STANDARD EUROPE'S
I N T E L L I G E N C E R E U R O P E
This week in the European Internet economy
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translations by eTranslate
Wednesday, November 14, 2000
TOP STORY:
* Gruner + Jahr poised to buy Fast Company
WORTH REPEATING:
* UK start-ups optimistic
BRIEFS:
* News highlights of the week
BY THE NUMBERS:
* Darryl Mattocks on closing sales
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TOP STORY
~~~~~~~~~
Gruner + Jahr poised to buy Fast Company
Bertelsmann's publishing arm is set to make its second business
magazine acquisition of the year in a $200 million deal
By Boris Gröndahl
US media mogul Mortimer Zuckerman is negotiating to sell his business
magazine Fast Company to Gruner + Jahr USA, according to Inside.com
and the New York Times.
The sale, said to be worth $200 million (228 million euros) would be a
further media divestment for Zuckerman, who sold Atlantic Monthly a
year ago. It would also be the second acquisition of a business
magazine for Gruner + Jahr USA this year. The US branch of
Bertelsmann's publishing arm acquired Inc. magazine - reportedly also
for $200 million - in June.
Zuckerman owns the Daily News in New York and weekly US News & World
Report. He founded Fast Company five years ago to address the new
economy for a business readership, which at that time was not
adequately served by traditional business papers.
Fast Company sells 538,000 copies a month and is thought to be
profitable. But new economy magazines have seen a slowdown in growth
of advertising revenue recently. The slowdown has also affected Fast
Company's competitors such as Red Herring, Business 2.0 and The
Industry Standard. The notion that the valuation of his magazine would
not get any higher could have triggered Zuckermann's move.
Gruner + Jahr is the sixth largest magazine publisher in the US. Its
main foothold is in the family market. Its magazines - apart from Inc.
- are American Homestyle & Gardening, Child, Family Circle, Fitness,
McCall's, Parents and YM. Gruner + Jahr USA's CEO, Daniel Brewster,
acquired Inc. shortly after he took up the reigns in May.
Gruner + Jahr spokesman Kurt Otto declined to comment on what he
described as "an ongoing process". He referred to a recent statement
by Gruner + Jahr CEO Bernd Kundrun who said the US market is a
priority for Gruner + Jahr's investments, and that the company sees
new, young business publications as an important growth market. "Inc.
and Fast Company are both representative for this market," Otto said.
Fast Company would be only the second new economy magazine in the US
to be sold to an old media publisher. In 1998, Condé Nast bought Wired
magazine for $75 million (85 million euros).
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WORTH REPEATING
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"There's going to be a lot more [dotcom] merger and acquisition
activity, and when those fail you'll see a lot more of these."
Darryl Mattocks, a founder of Internet Music Shop, commenting on the
auction of defunct CD retailer Boxman's assets.
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BRIEFS
~~~~~~
A WATCHDOG IS BORN: The British Government is to create a new
regulatory body to cope with rapidly converging media. The new
authority, to be known as Ofcom, will be responsible for regulating
electronic communications and licensing broadcast services. Its remit
will cover telecoms, radio, television and the internet. The move is
intended to simplify a complex web of regulators and will see at least
five existing authorities rolled into the new watchdog.
http://tm0.com/sbct.cgi?s=110982215&i=284832&d=735051
BREATHE LESS: UK Internet service provider breathe has pulled the plug
on its unmetered access package. While the company asserted only "a
small number" of its members are affected, the decision will hit at
least half the user-base. The ISP bluntly announced that "the business
model is no longer viable". Whether "breathe freely" users will be
reimbursed for their original one-off £50 (83 euros) payment for the
flat-rate service remains unclear. The decision follows the
much-publicised collapse of the Altavista flat-rate offering earlier
this year.
http://tm0.com/sbct.cgi?s=110982215&i=284832&d=735052
PUTTING A LID ON BOXMAN: Last rites have been given to Boxman with its
stock and hardware going under the hammer. On Tuesday several hundred
people descended on an industrial park on the outskirts of Abingdon in
the UK to pick over the remains of the defunct CD retailer. Launched
in Sweden in 1997, the auction was the final chapter for Boxman, which
in its heyday was considered one of the top three Internet retailers
in Europe.
http://tm0.com/sbct.cgi?s=110982215&i=284832&d=735053
TORNADO SHRINKS: Tornado-Insider Group, one of the first European
publishing companies to cover Internet business news, has dismissed
about 20 per cent of its workforce in an attempt to become profitable
by early 2001. After the layoffs are complete, the company will retain
a staff of 45. It appears an ambitious schedule of events this year
may have slowed Tornado's path to profitability. Meanwhile, Internet
business magazines have been hit hard by the dotcom advertising slump
that has affected ad bookings for the first quarter of 2001.
http://tm0.com/sbct.cgi?s=110982215&i=284832&d=735054
GOING DUTCH: Dutch-American telecom group KPNQwest has denied press
reports that it is in talks with Energis about a possible takeover.
But KPNQwest's team of merger and acquisition experts is understood to
be prowling around the UK market looking for targets that would
increase its business in the country. Possible targets suggested by
analysts include Thus, which owns the Demon ISP, business ISP Easynet,
and telcos Redstone and Torch.
http://tm0.com/sbct.cgi?s=110982215&i=284832&d=735055
VODAFONE TALKS JAPANESE: There is press speculation that Vodafone has
agreed to acquire a 15 per cent stake in Japan Telecom (JT). The
UK-based wireless operator "is understood to have reached an
agreement" to acquire shares held by West Japan Railway and Central
Japan Railway, the Financial Times reports. In a related story,
British Telecom is said to be in talks about acquiring further shares
in JT from AT&T. But how long could the British competitors live under
the same Japanese roof?
http://tm0.com/sbct.cgi?s=110982215&i=284832&d=735056
UNIVERSAL EXPANSION: The $34 billion (38 billion euros) merger between
Vivendi, Seagram and Canal Plus has been approved by Canal Plus
shareholders, clearing the way for the creation of the world's
second-largest media company, Vivendi Universal. During a shareholder
meeting in Paris, 98.64 per cent of Canal Plus shareholders voted in
favour of the merger, effectively removing the last barrier to the
deal.
http://tm0.com/sbct.cgi?s=110982215&i=284832&d=735057
STORY LINE: Headline aggregator Moreover.com is selling its services
to corporations, in an effort to enable employees and customers to get
all the latest relevant news on a company's own intranet or public Web
site. It also announced that search firm Inktomi is licensing its
technology to index the dynamic content of its enterprise and portal
customers with licensees paying upwards of $30,000 (34,000 euros) a
year.
http://tm0.com/sbct.cgi?s=110982215&i=284832&d=735058
FEATURE - WANADOO MORE: The Internet service provider controlled by
France Telecom, is determined to become a European powerhouse, and its
acquisition of Freeserve last week put it firmly on track. Wanadoo is
already well ahead of the pack in France after devouring a string of
rival portals and smaller Internet companies. However, it had been
lagging behind its competitors on the European stage. But with 4.1
million subscribers, Wanadoo/Freeserve will be the third largest ISP
in Europe.
http://www.thestandardeurope.com:8080/article/display/0,1151,13028,00.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------
BY THE NUMBERS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The UK tech start-up scene is not as gloomy is as the headlines might
suggest. NOP Research Group's Dotcom Panel found that 30 per cent of
UK-based Internet start-ups were in profit last year, and more than 50
per cent expect to be in the black next year.
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STAFF
~~~~~
Written by James Price. Send news tips and press releases to
[log in to unmask] at The Industry Standard's London bureau.
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