Will Elkann with Gedi climb the Sole 24 Ore?
Elkann's moves with Gedi between sales of local newspapers and aims (Il Sole 24 Ore?). The article from Professionereporter
John Elkann proceeds.
He has in his head a physiognomy of the Gedi group, of the group with its newspapers and goes on. Now is the time for the reorganization of some of the local newspapers that he acquired together with Repubblica . But this arrangement is functional to a more coveted prey, the Sole 24 Ore , a newspaper of Confindustria, which in recent times has given more trouble than satisfaction to Confindustria.
Let's see in order. Immediately after Elkann perfected the purchase of Gedi with Repubblica, Espresso, Stampa, Secolo XIX and 13 local newspapers, some potential buyers of some local newspapers, formerly Finegil, came to light.
BIG PIECES
Elkann and his managers first dedicated themselves to the big shots, Repubblica and Stampa , with the new directions that are proceeding to change the face of the two great newspapers.
Then, before last summer, local newspapers moved on to the dossier. They began to make distinctions. On the one hand, the "good" ones from the North East, the Messaggero Veneto of Udine, which has excellent sales performance, the prestigious Piccolo of Trieste, the city of Generali, the Gazzetta di Mantova , which is in Lombardy, but with the head ( business) turned to Veneto and Friuli. On the other hand, the less good ones, because they are less strategic and in economic difficulties, such as the full-bodied Tirreno , which up to 2014 made a lot of money for its owners and then began to fail. Today it has an editorial office of 77 journalists, plus 40 polygraphers. Then, Gazzetta di Modena, Gazzetta di Reggio, Nuova Ferrara .
Neither good nor less good all the others, Mattino di Padova, Tribuna di Treviso, Nuova di Venezia and Mestre, Provincia Pavese, Corriere delle Alpi, Sentinella del Canavese.
It is not a question of getting rid of weights, but of print runs. Because Elkann has an object of desire to perfect his idea of a European and Atlantic-level publishing group, Anglo-Saxon-style newspapers, focused on economics, finance, international politics. This object is the Sole 24 Ore , for which he is courting the president of Confindustria, Carlo Bonomi. Il Sole, with the trial of the former Neapolitan director, the former ad Tre and the former president Benedini for irregularities in the company's accounts, cost the industrial association money and reputation. Buying Il Sole means approaching the limit of 20 percent of copies sold that only one subject can hold and therefore means having to leave other publications to their fate.
ANTITRUST LIMITS
Who to sell then? The name of Riffeser, publisher of the Day , of the Resto del Carlino and of the Nation , had been made for the Tyrrhenian , but the president of Fieg soon left the scene. To make room for lesser-known figures, such as that of Alberto Leonardis, who was already the buyer of Finegil of the Pescara Center in 2016 (and left in 2018). Leonardis bought the Center when Gedi con merged with Itedi (Stampa and Secolo XIX) and there too there was a problem of print runs to be abandoned in order to fall within the limits set by the Antitrust. Another possible buyer is the company Portobello srl of Rome which manages two newspapers and an advertising concessionaire. Or – for the newspapers of the north, a consortium of entrepreneurs from Parma.
The editors of the Gazzette and Nuova Ferrara met in assembly on 30 September. From the leaders of the group they have obtained weak denials, only verbal, on the operations in progress. No official release. Both the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Emilian newspapers can be interesting for political operations that aim to shift the “red” tradition of those areas to the right.
Article published on professionereporter.eu
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/elkann-con-gedi-scalera-il-sole-24-ore/ on Thu, 01 Oct 2020 07:41:30 +0000.