Today, Metro’s world-wide guest editor is fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld. Inside all Metro’s there are stories by and inspired by him.
All Metro’s can be downloaden from the ReadMetro website.
Below the covers of Brazil, France, Guatelmala, Hong Kong, Denmark, Ecuador, Holland, Hungary, Russia, Sweden, USA and Portugal (Click to enlarge).
Accoding to Danish website MediaWatch, the trade in Metro International shares was stopped last Friday because of a sudden interest in the shares, suggesting that some parties with knownledge on the Kinnevik bid bought shares beforehand.
Knnivik CEO Mia Brunell Livfors, however, denied such allegations in the Swedish financial daily Dagens Industri.
Kinnevik, Metro International’s major shareholder, has offered to acquire all outstanding shares of the Metro and all outstanding warrants.
The price of the bid for the shares is 46 to 47% higher than the current value.
The Independent Committee of the Board of Directors of Metro International unanimously recommends the shareholders and the warrant holders to accept the public offer made by Kinnevik.
Full press release can be read here.
Kinnevik now hold almost 50% of the shares (click on pictire to see bigger version). Acceptance by other shareholders is expected. The takeover will not change the strategy of Metro according to the press release.
Metro International today announced that its equity stake in Metro Czech Republic will decrease from 40.0% to 6.7% due to a decision not to participate in a capital increase.
Metro sold 60% of Metro Czech Republic in December 2007 to Mafra Media Group, a German media conglomerate controlled by the publishers of Rheinische Post (Düsseldorf).
Mafra bought the majority of Metro in the Czech Republic and ‘merged’ the paper with its own free daily Metropolitní Expres. Mafra now owns 93.3% of Metro Czech Republic, that will operated as a franchise from now on.
“The decision not to participate in the capital increase is yet another step in the strategy where Metro aims to focus on emerging markets” according to the Metro press release.
At the end of Feruary, the RCS Mediagroup (Corriere della Sera) will close down its free daily – or “freepress” in Italian – City. The economic situation and the drop in advertising are said to be responsible for the closure.
The editioral staff is protesting agianst the closure and has ‘occupied‘ the website of the paper.
City was launched in 2001 in Rome and Milan, and later started local editions in Florence, Bologna, Bari, Naples (2002), Genua, Turin and Verona (2005).
Total circulation of City is 850,000 – making it the largest Italian free daily (together with Metro) after Leggo concentrated its footprint to Rome and Milan. 1.8 million people read City on an average day.
The closure will lower Italian free newspaper circulation to just over 2 million.
In 2008 circulation still was 4.6 million, with 9 different titles published. Since then 24minuti (2009), E Polis (2010) and some local papers closed down while Leggo cut circulation.
Spanish free daily Qué! celebrated its 7th birth last week with a special issue on mobile content, with a huge QR code on the 64-page 18 January issue (download).
Qué! is developing content for video that readers can download by entering the picture on the cover in their smartphone. Also the webpage www.que.es is redesigned.
Qué! – owned by Vocento and local partners – now shares the national Spanish free market with 20 Minutos.
The paper started with 12 editions and a circulation of almost 1 million in January 2005. Six new editions were launched between 2007 and 2009. In 2012 the paper distributes 600,000 copies in ten different editions.
The closure of Danish free daily Urban opened up an opportunity for Denmark’s only free daily publisher Metro International, owning the majority of the two remaining free dailies in the country: MetroXpress and 24timer.
In total Metro expects to win 75,000 to 100,000 readers in the future because of the closure of Urban according to MediaWatch.
Metro does not wanted to take 24timer from the market, but was considering to differentiate between the titles. 24timer could go down in distribution, making it more attractive for smaller advertisers while MetroXpress could increase its print run.
That is why MetroXpress has increased it’s circulation with 25,000 to 200,000 (MediaWatch).
Dutch free daily De Pers celebrates it 5 year birthday today.
The special issue (can be downloaded from here) contains a selection of the best stories that have been in the paper according to the editors. De Pers will also launch a book with stories from the last 5 years.
De Pers wanted to be the largest free newspaper in the Netherlands when it was launched in 2007. It never was (in the first year it had a circulation of 480,000), but its ambitions were substantial.
Print run was expected to grow to one million, while the paper also launched a saturday edition, a financial paper (a test run) and a series of books.
The paper lost millions of Euro’s and cut circulation to 220,000 in 2009. In that year, Marcel Boekhoorn, the owner of De Pers closed a deal with Wegener (Mecom) to print and distribute the paper, and sell advertising for a fixed fee for the next 11 years.
Although the deal was not very profitable for Wegener, De Pers was saved and is now again increasing the circulation to more than 300,000.
De Pers is very different from ‘regular’ free papers. It relies much less on wire copy and tries to build its own agenda with original news.
Commercial broadcaster TF1, the new owner of Metro France, will invest more than one million Euro in the paper, expand to 20 new markets and expects to break even in two years.
The paper will not increase the print run of 760,000 but reallocate 15 to 20% of the copies to new markets. The number of editions will go from 15 to 35 according to new director Edouard Boccon-Gibod in La Tribune.
In 2012 the paper expects a two-digit growth, partly because of synergies with TF1. There are, however, no plans to integrate editorial departments. There are now 115 people working for Metro, 43 of them journalists.
Boccon-Gibod accused former (majority) owner Metro International of not investing enough in the paper. One of the results is that Metro is far lagging behind 20 Minutes when it comes to visitors for the website.
La Tribune revealed also that Bolloré made an offer for the shares of Metro last summer. Martin Bouygues, owner of the Bouygues company that controls TF1, however, did not want his rival and enemy Vincent Bolloré to get hold of Metro. TF1 as minority shareholder had the first rights to buy the remaining stock and matched Bolloré’s offer.
Also 20 Minutes has announced to expand their market, although this will be accompanied by increasing the circulation.
In France total circulation increased from 2.3 million in 2009 to 2.6 million in 2010 and to 3.2 million in 2011.
In March, Metro France will also move to a smaller format and introduce a more colorful design. The smaller format resembles that of competitors 20 Minutes and Direct Matin. Also the Metro editions in the Czech Republic and Hungary use the smaller (half-Berliner) format.
Direct Matin, the free newspaper of the French Bolloré group, will end their collaboration with Le Monde and Le Courrier International.
For the last five years, journalists from both publications were responsible for four pages in every issue of Direct Matin.
From now on, the whole paper (24 pages) will be made by the own staff of Direct Matin. There are 60 journalists working for the paper. (L’Express)