Il Sole 24 ORE e Wise Sgr: agreement for the acquisition of editoriale Gpp

Milan, 8 September 2006 – Il Sole 24 ORE has signed an agreement with Wise SGR, the Wise Equity Fund management company, for acquisition of the entire share capital of Editoriale GPP.

The transaction, currently submitted to approval of the Anti-Trust Authority, will pave the way to creating the first national operator in the sector of specialised B2B publishing with sales of €80 million and a wide and varied multimedia and multisector product portfolio. The agreement will be executed in April 2007 with approval of the Annual Report 2006.

 

Il Sole 24 ORE is already present in some of the most typical segments of sector publishing with its own products, thanks to acquisition of Edagricole, executed in 2001, and the recent agreement with Federico Motta Editore which led to formation of the new  Motta Architettura publishing house.
GPP, the publishing company resulting from the merger of four leading Italian publishers (Agepe, Quasar, JCE, Faenza), boasted sales in 2005 of more than €45 million and is a market leader in the B2B publishing segment where it operates in the Ho.Re.Ca. (hotel, restaurant and catering), Retail, ICT (Information technology, Broadcasting and Electronics), Building industry and Architecture sectors. The GPP portfolio consists primarily of periodicals – over 70 in all – which include Bargiornale, Mark Up and Linea EDP.

 

GPP’s business will be added to the Professional Division of Il Sole 24 ORE.

 

“The acquisition of GPP," remarked C.E.O., Claudio Calabi, "bolsters the leadership of Il Sole 24 ORE in publishing, training, software and communications services with technical, regulatory and scientific content for professionals, businesses and the public sector."