Canadian Magazine Industry News
18 May 2011, VANCOUVER/TORONTO
Glacier buys 15 Rogers b-to-b titles
Vancouver publishing powerhouse Glacier Media Inc., through its Toronto trade magazine division Business Information Group, is buying 15 trade titles and associated properties from Rogers Publishing in a deal that shakes up the Canadian business-to-business publishing industry. Sixty-three employees have been offered positions with Glacier.
The affected Rogers titles include:
Food in Canada
Le Bulletin des agriculteurs
Canadian Packaging
HPAC
Meetings & Incentive Travel (including Incentiveworks, Canada’s largest trade show for the meetings, incentive travel and promotions industry)
Canadian Plant
Plant West
Canadian Metalworking
Canadian Plastics
Materials, Management & Distribution (MM&D)
Purchasing B2B
Design Engineering
Hardware Merchandising (one of the oldest magazines in Canada)
Canadian Contractor
HVAC
Onsite
Fraser's Directory
Canadian Manufacturing Online
The deal includes related Web site and databases.
Rogers retains the Marketing group, including Marketing, CARDOnline and Canadian Printer (online), as well as the medical, financial and legal publications.
Toronto-based Rogers employees who accept new job offers will move the Business Information Group offices further north in the DVP/Eglinton area. (That office itself expects to move as the lease expires in October). Montreal-based employees at Les Bulletin des agriculteurs will move to Glacier's Montreal office.
Glacier chief financial officer Orest Smysnuik says there will be no magazine closures as a result of the deal, which closes May 27. "There actually is very little overlap. That's one of the things that appealed to us about it," he told Masthead.
One area of overlap is Fraser's Directories with BIG's existing Scott's Directories.
Smysnuik says the deal has been under discussion for the last several months. He wouldn't reveal terms or revenue figures. Masthead estimates the revenue for the group at approximately $15 million.
The Rogers titles are part of the old Maclean Hunter business publishing group, and the Business Information Group is the successor to the old Southam trade magazine business. The two businesses trace their origins to two feuding brothers, J.B. Maclean and Hugh C. MacLean respectively (they spelled their names differently), who parted company more than 100 years ago.
Below is the full text of the press release. Stay with Masthead for more reports on the changes.
Glacier Media Enters Agreement With Rogers Publishing To Acquire Select Portfolio Of Trade Publication Assets
(TSX:GVC) Glacier Media Inc. is pleased to announce that, through one of its affiliates, it has entered into a definitive agreement with Rogers Publishing Limited to acquire a portfolio of media assets from Rogers’ business and professional publishing group. The assets comprise 15 trade publications and digital brands, together with their associated readership database, events and web presence.
Properties acquired include established and leading publications such as Food in Canada, Le Bulletin des agriculteurs, Canadian Packaging, HPAC and Meetings & Incentive Travel (including Incentiveworks, Canada’s largest trade show for the meetings, incentive travel and promotions industry).
The assets will integrate into Glacier’s Business Information Group, a leading operator of Canadian trade publications and industry-focused web sites, and Glacier’s Farm Business Communications.
The acquisition allows Glacier to: Expand the company’s growing print and digital footprint in the Canadian agriculture and food media industry; Further leverage the operating platform of the Business Information Group (e.g. fulfillment systems, production services, web technologies); Utilize acquired technologies to accelerate the online capabilities and reach of the Business Information Group’s directory products, especially Scott’s Directories.
The transaction is expected to close on May 27, 2011.
About the Company: Glacier Media Inc. is an information communications company focused on the provision of primary and essential information and related services through print, electronic and online media. Glacier Media Inc. is pursuing this strategy through its core businesses: the local newspaper, trade information and business and professional publishing.
The affected Rogers titles include:
Food in Canada
Le Bulletin des agriculteurs
Canadian Packaging
HPAC
Meetings & Incentive Travel (including Incentiveworks, Canada’s largest trade show for the meetings, incentive travel and promotions industry)
Canadian Plant
Plant West
Canadian Metalworking
Canadian Plastics
Materials, Management & Distribution (MM&D)
Purchasing B2B
Design Engineering
Hardware Merchandising (one of the oldest magazines in Canada)
Canadian Contractor
HVAC
Onsite
Fraser's Directory
Canadian Manufacturing Online
The deal includes related Web site and databases.
Rogers retains the Marketing group, including Marketing, CARDOnline and Canadian Printer (online), as well as the medical, financial and legal publications.
Toronto-based Rogers employees who accept new job offers will move the Business Information Group offices further north in the DVP/Eglinton area. (That office itself expects to move as the lease expires in October). Montreal-based employees at Les Bulletin des agriculteurs will move to Glacier's Montreal office.
Glacier chief financial officer Orest Smysnuik says there will be no magazine closures as a result of the deal, which closes May 27. "There actually is very little overlap. That's one of the things that appealed to us about it," he told Masthead.
One area of overlap is Fraser's Directories with BIG's existing Scott's Directories.
Smysnuik says the deal has been under discussion for the last several months. He wouldn't reveal terms or revenue figures. Masthead estimates the revenue for the group at approximately $15 million.
The Rogers titles are part of the old Maclean Hunter business publishing group, and the Business Information Group is the successor to the old Southam trade magazine business. The two businesses trace their origins to two feuding brothers, J.B. Maclean and Hugh C. MacLean respectively (they spelled their names differently), who parted company more than 100 years ago.
Below is the full text of the press release. Stay with Masthead for more reports on the changes.
Glacier Media Enters Agreement With Rogers Publishing To Acquire Select Portfolio Of Trade Publication Assets
(TSX:GVC) Glacier Media Inc. is pleased to announce that, through one of its affiliates, it has entered into a definitive agreement with Rogers Publishing Limited to acquire a portfolio of media assets from Rogers’ business and professional publishing group. The assets comprise 15 trade publications and digital brands, together with their associated readership database, events and web presence.
Properties acquired include established and leading publications such as Food in Canada, Le Bulletin des agriculteurs, Canadian Packaging, HPAC and Meetings & Incentive Travel (including Incentiveworks, Canada’s largest trade show for the meetings, incentive travel and promotions industry).
The assets will integrate into Glacier’s Business Information Group, a leading operator of Canadian trade publications and industry-focused web sites, and Glacier’s Farm Business Communications.
The acquisition allows Glacier to: Expand the company’s growing print and digital footprint in the Canadian agriculture and food media industry; Further leverage the operating platform of the Business Information Group (e.g. fulfillment systems, production services, web technologies); Utilize acquired technologies to accelerate the online capabilities and reach of the Business Information Group’s directory products, especially Scott’s Directories.
The transaction is expected to close on May 27, 2011.
About the Company: Glacier Media Inc. is an information communications company focused on the provision of primary and essential information and related services through print, electronic and online media. Glacier Media Inc. is pursuing this strategy through its core businesses: the local newspaper, trade information and business and professional publishing.
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Today you have relatively junior people who run McDonald's franchises on behalf of the owners or many other big buck franchises whose existence in the market is because of their brand not the people in the business.
This I believe is the Rogers business model and business publishing has shifted from a title that was enthusiastically directed by people who had a sincere interest in the business to people who are managing a brand.
#11: TWO massive, unchecked egos.
#12: Illustrating your point are the former Rogers publishers who launched their own competitive publications and the Rogers mags are now just a shadow. Witness the effect of the ever-fatter Mechanical Business on PMAC, and the withering of M&IT (part of the sale) by the successful Ignite. Marketing magazine, MM&D and Plant never recovered from their publisher changes, just to name a few.
As described in A History of the Business Press in Canada (see the CBP website: http://www.cbp.ca) the architects of the Canadian business press were John Bayne Maclean and his brother Hugh Cameron MacLean. John launched the Canadian Grocer in 1887. Hugh joined John�s company in 1888 and the two brothers started four more publications before the turn of the century. This was the foundation of the MacLean Publishing Company that would be renamed the Maclean Hunter Publishing Company in 1945.
Hugh left the company in 1899, and in 1908, he bought a small publishing company consisting of three business publications. This was the beginning of Hugh C. MacLean Publications Ltd. which, after Maclean Hunter, became Canada�s second largest business magazine publisher. The company was sold in 1960 to the Southam Company. And as we know Glacier bought the remnants of Southam.
History comes full circle.
Having competed against Rogers for years, slogging it out in the trenches, I have a good deal of respect for the people who are joining us, and I'm looking forward to actually working with them for a change, rather than competing against them. The realities of media have changed, and I think this merging of two corporate histories and cultures - Southam and Maclean-Hunter - will ultimately benefit the B2B reader. Serve your readers first, serve your advertisers best.
Thanks for welcoming us, Eager to Move Forward"! Your positive comments are appreciated.
Re your comment that I must be turning in my grave, I have to report that my wife, sons, relatives, friends and neighbours have assured me that I am alive and living in Don Mills.