LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Tibère Adler has resigned as managing director of the Edipresse Group, French-speaking Switzerland’s largest media company, at the end of June. Adler and the company say that he is leaving after 22 years with the company, on excellent terms: he will continue to handle mandates for Tamedia, which bought out Edipresse, with the merger of the two to be completed next year.
Pierre Lamunière, chairman and administrator for Edipresse, will step into the post left vacant by Adler.
Adler is moving on to become a minority shareholder in and chairman of the board of Digital Luxury Group in Geneva, in September. Adler, as part of the DLG announcement of his post says “It is a pioneering company in digital marketing for luxury brands and is undoubtedly one of the most dynamic in this business sector.”
The 48-year-old Adler, a Geneva native, is a lawyer. He completed a management course at IMD in Lausanne. He remains a member of Edipresse’s Asia Advistory Board, a post that may prove helpful in his new position, given the emphasis DLG is putting on selling in Asia. The company has its head office in Geneva, with offices in New York and Shanghai.
DLG was born in May 2011 from IC-Agency, a company specialized in digital marketing for luxury brands which calls itself the “first international company solely dedicated to the success of luxury brands online”, in particular using social media.
The IC-Agency brand has been handed over to IC Agency Canada, the group says, and it now has no association with DLG.
Merger approved by Competition Commission, but Tamedia recently accused of “abuse”
Recycling newspapers: it's taking longer to fill up the bin
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Tamedia and Edipresse, two of Switzerland’s largest print and online media companies, will celebrate their marriage sooner than expected. The complete merger was expected in 2013, but the companies now say they will merge this year, when Tamedia’s purchase of 50.1 percent of the shares is completed.
Tamedia will spend a total of between CHF269.8 and 330.2 million, plus 250,000 registered Tamedia shares, to buy out Edipresse, it says in a press release issued 7 April.
The news comes as the shakeout of Swiss media continues, with several developments in recent days:
- newspapers in French-speaking Switzerland again had a serious bleed of readers in 2010, including the number one, free paper 20 Minutes, Mach (industry agency that tallies official circulation figures) reported 22 March 2011, with German-speaking areas doing better, but nevertheless seeing falling sales
- Tamedia was accused 1 April of abusing its position of power following its takeover of Edipresse, for sharply increasing advertising rates
- five regional newspapers joined forces this week, with a shared platform starting 5 April for international, national and business/economic news.
French language papers in “free fall”
Remp publishes an annual Mach reports in March of every year on how Swiss media fared the previous year, with sales and circulation details which serve as the bible of the advertising industry.
Circulation figures have been falling for a number of years but the process appears to have speeded up in 2010, with public television TSR reported that French-speaking newspapers in particular were in “free fall” last year, in terms of losing readers.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The cheering news for Swiss media last week that advertising sales were up slightly in March was wiped out Monday morning 26 April by news that Edipresse, the largest media company in French-speaking Switzerland, ended 2009 in the red. The company, which has operations in several countries outside Switzerland, posted a loss of CHF32.3 million on revenues of CHF178.6m. It had profits of CHF30.4m in 2008.
The company notes in its press release that the year would have been profitable but for several exceptional costs, including a cost-cutting restructuring programme at CHF49 million. The bulk of its activities in Switzerland are being absorbed by Zurich-based Tamedia, with the merger of the two moving ahead. A first step in the merger occurred Friday.
Edipresse owns the Tribune de Geneve, 24 Heures, Le Matin and a large share of Le Temps.
Links to other sites: Edipresse financial report for 2009, Le Temps, TSR
More Swiss media cuts on the way
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Edipresse, the largest media company in French-speaking Switzerland, announced Friday 9 October that it will cut nearly 10 percent of its workforce: 100 jobs, with half in its print units, some 30 journalists’ positions and the rest in production. The company has 1,124 full-time equivalent positions in Switzerland. Half of its approximately 3,000 employees work outside the country. Details about which jobs are affected will follow later. The group will begin consultations next week with staff representatives: Edipresse Romande (French-speaking area) has collective agreements with staff, although it has not had such agreements in German-speaking areas in the country.
The latest round of job cuts is due largely to a 25 percent drop in advertising since 2008, with “no improvement in sight”, the company says.
...and then there was one
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss Competition Commission has given its blessing to the proposed sale of Edipresse’s Swiss operations to Zurich-based Tamedia on the grounds that competition is not threatened by the takeover. Edipresse, Switzerland’s third-largest media company, is based in Lausanne and its operations in Switzerland are limited to the French-speaking area. Tamedia owns media mostly in the German-speaking part of the country.
The competition authorites say that there is no significant overlap in the market coverage.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Edipresse, whose Swiss operations are scheduled to be sold to Tamedia in Zurich in 2010 if the deal is approved by the federal government, has posted a loss of CHF8.9 million for the first half of 2009, citing the continuing overall weak economy and lower advertising revenue. The company notes that the fall in turnover, CHF36 million, was not as great in percentage terms as the decline in profits, showing the positive impact of cost-cutting measures. The figures are in any event difficult to compare to previous financial results because the company has adopted new accounting methods as part of the spinoff, and the Swiss business is now handled separately as “discontinued business.”
The Swiss arm of Edipresse had January-June 2009 revenues of CHF173.6 million, down CHF 38m (-18%) compared to the same period in 2008, “mainly due to the fall in advertising receipts.” The profit on these operations nevertheless remained positive, before depreciation, at CHF22.5 million, a fall of CHF-13.7m.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Profits at Switzerland’s largest media group, Tamedia AG plunged to only CHF800,000, a drop of almost 99 percent in the first half of 2009, the company announced 3 September. The results were even worse than analysts had predicted, and were blamed by the company on the “severe recession and also a collapse in advertising spending“. Sales revenues dropped 15.9 percent in the period versus only a 1.7 percent decline in corresponding costs, despite making savings of CHF47.8 million in the first half of the year.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss federal competition commission will take a closer look at the proposed fusion of the Swiss business of the country’s second and third largest media groups, Ediresse and Tamedia.
Zurich, Switzerland (romandie/ATS, Fre) – NZZ, German-speaking Switzerland’s main serious newspaper, said Wednesay 17 June that it will cut 20-25 jobs among its IT staff as part of plans to merge some of its operations. The cost-cutting measure will not touch the editorial staff. NZZ laid off 24 employees (20 fulltime posts) in late 2008. The newspaper also said it is studying sharp increases in subscription rates and the possibility of charging for some of its online content, notably financial reporting and commentary by its best-known journalists.
NZZ posted a loss for the first quarter of 2009, with advertising down by 30 percent from January to the end of March. Its Internet operations are operating at a loss that is currently CHF3 million, reports ATS. (2007-2008 figures). The Zurich newspaper is the latest media group in Switzerland to announce job cuts, in a string of actions to try to turn around the hard-hit newspaper, magazine and online news business.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss federal Competition Commission has decided to look more closely at the situation that will be created by a morning newspaper distribution agreement that could leave almost no competition in German-speaking Switzerland and parts of French-speaking Switzerland. The commission concluded after a preliminary review that further study is needed. Tamedia, NZZ and La Poste are seeking to cut costs by joining forces to distribute papers.
In another development linked to the increasingly difficult situation of Swiss media, several hundred journalists took to the streets in Zurich and Bern Tuesday 26 May over editorial staff job cuts announced by Tamedia.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Tamedia, which is scheduled to buy out the Swiss business of Edipresse if the competition commission approves the deal, has published less than rosy results for 2008: a 30 percent fall in profits, to CHF105.8 million. The company’s sales rose 21 percent to CHF895.7m, but this was due mainly to absorbing Bern-based Espace Media Group.
Tamedia publications
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – One of the main Swiss daily free newspapers, 20 Minutes or Matin Bleu, will be folded into the other, with the likely loss of 20 out of 70 jobs, as Switzerland’s second and third largest media companies, Tamedia agrees to buy Edipresse’s Swiss business and merge their activities in the home market. The goal, according to the joint press release they issued Tuesday 3 March, is to create a media company on a national scale. Tamedia is paying CHF226 million for a first 49.9% share in Edipresse, with the deal set to go through soon, and a 0.2% share to be transferred in early 2011.
