The Hallwag publishing house ceases
Berner Tagblatt Medien AG buys the Automobil Revue Group
The Automobil Revue Group includes Automobil Revue and Revue Automobile, with a weekly circulation of 45,000 and 20,000 copies respectively, Moto Sport Schweiz (14,000 copies weekly) and Moto Sport Suisse (3,500 copies fortnightly). Büchler Grafino, a wholly owned subsidiary of Berner Tagblatt Medien (BTM), is taking over all the employees of the AR groups; the jobs will remain in the Hallwag building.
Hallwag AG has been looking for buyers for its products for several months. As Maili Wolf, managing director of Hallwag AG, told WerbeWoche, the publishing house is to be dissolved if possible. Neither the shareholder families Wagner and Thoenen nor Meyer's geographisches Unternehmen, Stuttgart, another shareholder, are willing to continue the business for a longer period of time, she said.
Therefore, Hallwag AG had already sold the publishing rights of the Landfreund magazine to Landwirtschaftsverlag GmbH in Münster-Hiltrup, Germany, in October 2000. Wolf is still looking for solutions for the Hallwag maps and the books (wine literature). Presumably, the book and map divisions would be sold separately. According to Wolf, the aim is to preserve jobs and ensure the continued existence of the titles.
Negotiations are currently underway for the book publisher with the German publishing house Gräfe & Unzer (GU) in Munich, which already distributes Hallwag books in Germany and Austria. This is confirmed by a GU spokesman.
Wolf took over the management of Hallwag AG at the end of 1997 on a mandate basis, the aim being to restructure the publishing house. He succeeded in doing this, including selling the entire printing division to BTM, which integrated it into Benteli, which is why this company is still called Benteli Hallwag Druck AG. Wolf also sold various magazine titles and concentrated on the motor sector.
Hallwag took over Moto Sport from BTM, a title that has now been sold back to BTM. At the time, BTM had wanted to divest itself of small magazines. Asked about this buyback, Albert P. Stäheli, Chairman of the BTM Group Executive Board, explained that Automobil Revue was primarily of interest to BTM, but Hallwag had only wanted to sell the entire AR Group. Automobil Revue generates a turnover of about 20 million Swiss francs and has never been in the red, even during the difficult Hallwag years, emphasizes Stäheli.
The turnaround at Hallwag has been successful. According to Wolf, the publishing house now generates sales of CHF 60 million. Wolf, who was head of magazines at Ringier until 1997, does not yet know what she will do after Hallwag AG is dissolved. She has received various inquiries, she says.
Acquire print jobs and buy titles
The BTM subsidiary Büchler Grafino (BG), which is taking over the AR Group, holds a one-third stake in the Bern printing center, as do the BTM-independent companies Fischer AG, Münsingen, and Marufia AG, Langnau i. E.. It specializes in newspaper printing and prints, among others, the Berner Zeitung, the Hotelrevue and the Ringier title Dimanche.ch.
According to Managing Director Paul Galli, BG has one job above all: order processing for the print center. "But we don't just acquire print jobs, we also buy titles or manage them," says Galli. In recent years, BG has therefore focused on regional newspapers and purchased corresponding titles, such as the Solothurner Woche, the Berner Bär, the Schweizer Bauer and the Bantiger Post.
And Automobil Revue, a newspaper, is of interest to BG not only financially but also in terms of printing, also in view of the new printing center planned for 2004. Other BTM-owned titles, such as the Burgdorfer Tagblatt, the Murtenbieter and the Anzeiger von Kerzers, are handled by BG as management contracts. The situation is similar with the title Landfreund, for which BG has concluded a utilization agreement with Landwirtschaftsverlag GmbH in Stuttgart. (mk)
