|
overview
holdings
landmarks
|
overview
This
profile considers Hachette-Filipacchi (the media arm of
the Lagardère industrial conglomerate) and Wendel
publishing interests.
It covers -
introduction
French book publishing is dominated by two groups - Lagardere
and Wendel Investissement.
Lagardere's publishing interests centre on Hachette-Filipacchi,
now one of the world's largest magazine publishers (with
operations on most continents). In addition to its magazine
publishing Hachette has large-scale book publishing and
distribution operations, including the UK-based Hodder
Headline group. Parent Lagardere has major aerospace and
other high technology interests.
Wendel moved into publishing in 2004. Its operations encompass
mining, biotechnology, property, electrical manufacturing
and other interests.
Lagardere
Paris-based magazine, newspaper and advertising giant
Hachette-Filipacchi
is owned by French industrial
conglomerate (munitions, telecommunication gear, aerospace
and - until 2003 - cars) Lagardère.
Its presence outside Europe is often through licensing
of titles: around 157 titles, often through local editions
(for example there were 31 editions of Elle, 15
of Elle Décoration and 11 of Car & Driver).
Within France it has a dominant role in newspaper distribution
through the Relay kiosk chain and the Nouvelles Messageries
de la Presse Parisienne (NMPP). It owns regional newspapers
such as Nice Matin and La Provence and leads
the local magazine market (titles include Paris Match,
Elle, Télé 7 Jours and Pariscope). It has a
small stake in ailing Parti Communiste Français newspaper
L'Humanité.
Revenue is €2.3 billion, with 51% outside France
and 65% in the EU. It claims to be the third largest magazine
publisher in the US and Italy, the largest in France and
Spain, and globally the largest magazine publisher.
Hachette dates from a bookshop opened in Paris by Louis
Hachette in the 1820s. It became a major publisher and
the dominant media buyer. Lagardere acquired Hachette
in 1981.
In March 2005 the Le Monde board
announced a recapitalization agreement in which Spanish
publisher Grupo PRISA and Lagardere
SA would contribute €25 million each to a capital
increase alongside other potential new investors.
A chronology for the group is here.
 Editis
and Wendel
In October 2002 Lagardere agreed to buy Vivendi's
EU and Latin American publishing units - for example the
Larousse, Robert Laffont and Bordas imprints of Vivendi
Universal Publishing (VUP) - for US$1.2 billion.
That agreement attracted criticism from competitors and
government agencies (eg comments that Lagardere would
have over 50% of France's paperback sales, 80% of textbook
sales and 69% of book distribution), reflected in the
decision by the European Commission's competition unit
that Lagardere should relinquish much of the acquisition.
Accordingly, in May 2004 Lagardere sold Editis - a publishing
group that accounted for around 60% of the interests acquired
from Vivendi - to conglomerate Wendel
Investissement for around €660 million. It retained
key imprints such as Larousse, Anaya, Dunod, Dalloz and
Armand Colin.
Wendel Investissement resulted from the 2002 merger of
Marine-Wendel and CGIP (Compagnie Generale d’Industrie
et de Participations), banking and investment groups controlled
by the extended de Wendel family under the leadership
of Ernest-Antoine Seillière. The group has stakes
in ICT (eg 11% of Cap Gemini Ernst & Young), manufacturing
(eg 9% of Valeo, 100% of Wheelabrator Allevard and 34%
of Legrand), inspection and testing services (33% of Bureau
Veritas), mining and property development (eg Oranje-Nassau),
publishing (30% of Trader Classified Media) and biotechnology
(eg bioMérieux Alliance and Stallergenes).
The family fortune originated in iron making prior to
the French Revolution, with expansion into steel, coal
mining, shipbuilding, arms manufacture and finance over
the past two centuries. It survived criticism from the
left and right during the 1920s and 1930s that it was
the centrepiece of the Mur d'Argent (wall of
money) that supposedly stifled France's economy, opposition
to the Vichy regime, and recurrent nationalisation of
the iron, steel, mining and railway interests.
Acquisition of Editis represents de Wendel entry into
book publishing, although the family had some newspaper
interests prior to 1940. François de Wendel, president
of the Banque de France and arguably France's leading
industrialist during the interwar period, for example
purchased the elite Journal des Debats and subsidised
Le Temps.
Prouvost
and Marie Claire
Hachette has a 42% stake in publisher Marie Claire, controlled
by the heirs of industrialist Jean Prouvost (1885-1978)
and Nicholas Berry.
The group includes Marie-Claire (deliciously
denounced in the mid-1930s by a distinguished cleric as
"a menace to chastity and marital fidelity"),
Marie-Claire Maison, Avantages, Famili
and Cuisine et vins de France. Family newspaper,
printing and magazine interests - often in partnership
with the Beghin paper and sugar refining dynasty - formerly
included Le Figaro (now controlled by Dassault's
Socpresse), Paris-Match, Paris-Soir, Paris-Midi
and Sept Jours.
Prouvost had inherited major wool processing and spinning
mills in the north of France. He modernised France's largest
wool-combing factory with war compensation after 1918
before opening subsidiaries in the US and Czechoslovakia.
Unlike most other members of the industrial aristocracy
his media involvement in the 1930s was financially successful,
marked by alliance with the Beghin family (expanding from
sugar refining to fine paper production) in launch of
a series of photo-oriented newspapers and magazines.
Paris Soir, founded 1931, reached circulation
of 1.8m by 1939. Match reached 1.4m a year after
establishment in 1938.
Prouvost was Minister of Information in 1940. Growth was
interrupted by the 1939-45 War, which saw closure of some
titles, but Prouvost's print holdings grew in the 1950s
with acquisition of Le Figaro from the ex-wife
of colourful perfumier François Coty (1874-1934). Coty
had acquired Le Figaro in 1922 and founded L'Ami
du people in 1926. It reached the 1m circulation
mark in 1930 after a war with Havas
about news and with Hachette about distributional. Coty's
political ambitions had been reflected in subsidies of
Action Française, the Bonapartist Autorite
and Croix de Feu title Le Flambeau.
The 1970s saw disposal of some Prouvost titles and sale
of around 50% of Marie Claire shares to cosmetics giant
L'Oreal; that stake was subsequently repurchased by the
Prouvost family and sold to Hachette.
The family's textile interests passed to the Chargeurs
conglomerate led by Jérôme Seydoux, which
prior to 1997 included the Pathé
SA communications group (film and video production, cinemas,
cable and satellite interests such as equity in BSkyB
and CanalSatellite, and control of Libération
newspaper). Pathé was acquired by Vivendi
in 1999 and subsequently dismantled, with most components
being resold to Seydoux.
studies
There is no major English-language study of Lagardère
or Hachette. Richard Barbrook's splendid Media Freedom:
The Contradictions of Communications in the Age of Modernity
(London: Pluto Press 1995) offer insights on the regulatory
environment in France.
For the early years see the five volume Histoire Générale
de la Presse Française (Paris: Presses Universitaires
de France 1969-1976) by Claude Bellanger, Jacques Godechot,
Pierre Guiral & Fernand Terrou and The Government
& the Newspaper Press in France, 1814-1881 (Oxford:
Oxford Uni Press 1959) by Irene Collins.
For the Wendels see Pierre Fritsch's Les Wendel, Rois
de l'Acier Français (Paris: Laffont 1976),
Jean Jeanneny's more searching François de Wendel
en République: l'argent et le pouvoir, 1914-1940
(Paris: Seuil 1976), The Wendel Family: 'Affectio
Societatis': The Story of A French Industrial Dynasty
(1704-1976) (Fontainebleau: INSEAD 1999) by Christine
Blondel & Ludo Van der Heyden and La banque Seillière-Demachy:
Une dynastie familiale au centre du négoce, de
la finance et des arts 1798-1998 (Paris: éditions
Perrin 1999) edited by Raymond Dartevelle. There is a
brief profile in David Landes' Dynasties: Fortunes
and Misfortunes of the World's Great Family Businesses
(New York: Viking 2006). Family Capitalism: Wendels,
Haniels, Falcks, and the Continental European Model
(Cambridge: Belknap Press 2006) by Harold James is superb.
Jean Prouvost is profiled in Marc Martin's Medias
et journalistes de la Republique (Paris: Editions
Odile Jacob 1997) and in Marcel Haedrich's thinner Citizen
Prouvost: le portrait incontournable d'un grand patron
de la presse française (Paris: Filipacchi
1995). The memoir A la grâce de dieu (Paris:
Le Seuil 1973) by Prouvost's wife and editor Marcelle
Auclair is also of value.
For Arnold see Bryan Bennett's Edward Arnold: 100
Years of Publishing (London: Arnold 1990)
Holdings
An indication of the Lagardere media holdings is here.
An
indication of the Wendel media holdings is here.
next page (Hachette
holdings)
|
|
