The Bookseller.com

2nd December 2008

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Planeta to spur global growth at Editis

22.04.08 Barbara Casassus

The merger of French publishing business Editis and the Spanish media group Planeta will create one of the largest publishing businesses in Europe with book sales of about €2bn and ambitions to grow globally.

The announcement that Wendel was entering into exclusive talks with Planeta to sell France's second largest publisher ended months of rumour and bluff. In the end, the choice was between the Spanish group, which will be the fourth owner in six years, and France's Média Participations.

Despite the fact that Editis would no longer be French, Wendel said that it opted for Planeta because there was a "real logic for development". A spokesperson added: "Editis has outperformed the market, has a remarkable record of external growth and needed hew horizons."

In the press statement that accompanied the announcement, Editis chairman and chief executive Alain Kouck said the deal would "enable us to build a new European publishing leader and ensure that Editis can expand outside the French-speaking world".

Speaking to The Bookseller, Kouck added: "It will enable us to work together on digitisation, licences and development in Latin America, (creating) a completely different dimension and prospectives for development." He said that there would be no restructuring nor layoffs as a result of the deal, but that strategy for the future had not yet been hammered out in detail.

The announcment of the agreement was a disappointment for fellow French group Média Participations, which, according to one official, had raised the necessary capital and financing and had agreed unofficially on a price with Wendel. "But because of very late access to the data room, we were not ready for Planeta's deadline," the official added. It had already bid for Editis when the group was sold to the Lagardère Group, Hachette Livre's parent company, in 2002.

The price agreed, €1.026bn was higher than the value of between €750m and €950m put on the business when a sale was first mooted. A Paris-based analyst, who asked to remain anonymous, said the price was right. "It is a bit higher than usual for publishers, but Editis is a good asset and synergies will be considerable, especially in distribution," he said.

Planeta is Spain's largest media group and world leader in Spanish-language publishing. It reported sales of €2.5 billion euros last year, including about €1bn from its 40 publishing houses, and has more than 5,000 authors on its books.

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