The acquisition of the 50% of Mondolibri SpA held by Directgroup Bertelsmann
In April Arnoldo Mondadori Editore SpA concluded the acquisition of 50% of the share capital of Mondolibri SpA from DirectGroup Bertelsmann, increasing its own holding to 100%. The value of the operation was €6.75 million.
Mondolibri, leader in mail-order book sales and one of Italy’s major e-commerce operators, runs its business with two structures: the Book Club area, selling editorial and multimedia products using the “book club” formula, with the support of 70 sales outlets and an online platform, and Bol.it, a web site for the sale of editorial and multimedia products.
The creation of Electa Rmn
In September Mondadori Electa SpA with its French partner Réunion des Musées Nationaux created a new company, Electa Rmn Srl, with the aim of participating in bids launched by the Italian Cultural Heritage Ministry for the management of supplementary services at Italy’s leading museums and archaeological sites.
The operation, which was signalled to the antitrust authorities as constituting a concentration, was deemed to be co-operative andthat there were therefore no grounds for any measures to be taken regarding market concentration.
In December the antitrust authorities initiated an enquiry, pursuant to article 101 of the Treaty of the Functioning on the European Union, in order to establish whether the two companies, by creating a joint company to bid for public concessions, were also attempting to limit competition in the market.
This measure was communicated to Mondadori Electa SpA at the beginning of January of this year.
As of the date when this Annual Report was approved, the process is ongoing and it is not possible to foresee the outcome.
Investments in digital
A new Digital area was established on 1 September to provide a fresh impulse for the development of the Mondadori Group’s digital activities, making appropriate use of the company’s founding assets, such as brands, content, authors and communities of readers and advertisers, and to look for new paths for growth.
Conscious of the rapid transformation underway at a global level in the book market as a consequence of the spread of new technologies, Mondadori reached an agreement in October with Telecom Italia over the creation of Bibletstore, Italy’s first digital bookstore.
Some 1,200 titles of the publishing houses of the Group (Mondadori, Einaudi, Piemme, Sperling & Kupfer) are now available from the ebook store of Telecom Italia, of which 800 are backlist titles and 400 are new titles, published at the same time in both their printed and digital formats.
The partnership with Telecom Italia is an important first step for the marketing of the Group’s editorial assets, which will also be made available on the other leading platforms and devices on the market.
Thanks to collaboration with Telecom Italia, at Christmas three thematic channels were presented for ebook subscriptions: literature, genre fiction and children’s.
In November the digital catalogue of Bol.it was expanded, offering customers a choice of more than 90,000 ebooks by both Italian and international publishers.
All of the digital books are available in the e-pub or pdf formats and can be used on the leading tablets and e-readers.
Mondadori France: the sale of a specialised title
At the end of November 2010 an agreement was reached over the disposal of a specialised title in the entertainment sector, Cine-Chiffres, published by Mondadori Magazines France, at a price of €1.3 million.
The operation is part of the process of rationalisation of the portfolio of titles published in the French market.