Home » Business » IPM buys L’Avenir et Moustique from Nethys, unions worried

IPM buys L’Avenir et Moustique from Nethys, unions worried

The decision was expected on Monday. It took two more days for the board of directors of Nethys to validate a distribution that we had been hearing about for some time: the newspaper L’Avenir was bought by the press group IPM (La Dernier Heure / La Libre Belgique) ), which also won the magazines “Moustique” and “Télépocket”. This is the end of a process (re) launched with the arrival of the new management team, including CEO Renaud Witmeur. Last January, the audit firm EY (ex-Ernst & Young) had been mandated to determine the value of the group’s press division. In a second step, the investment bank Degroof Petercam put the entire Nethys press division on the market. Besides IPM, Rossel (“Sudpresse”, “Le Soir”) and Roularta (“Le Vif / L’Express) were in the running.

Alongside these three Belgian groups, a German investment fund, Fidelium Partners, had shown interest. Finally, he will have nothing.

A distribution that seems logical

These decisions of the Board of Nethys (which will have to be confirmed by the Board of Enodia, the parent company of Nethys) seem quite logical. Rossel already has a significant regional presence with “Sudpresse”, the risk of a monopoly situation existed, while opposite, IPM is less well established locally. L’Avenir, DH and Libre Belgique therefore seem to be quite complementary. In addition, a role concerning the management of the newspaper for the cooperative “Notre Avenir” is planned, what IPM has always taken into account, it comes back to us. The French-speaking group is already working on the Belgian version of “Paris-Match”, to see now how “Moustique”, a venerable magazine created almost a century ago (1924) by the publishing house Dupuis, will integrate in IPM.

These sales mark the end of the dream of the former boss of Nethys Stéphane Moreau to create a large public media player, who can benefit from the striking force of the operator VOO. These ” synergies “The expected ones never saw the light of day. In 2013, when it was bought by Tecteo,” L’Avenir “was in a newspaper in good financial health. 7 years later, the deficits widened structurally. IPM is now responsible for relaunching the title, which celebrated its 125th anniversary last year.

The AJP takes note

The society of editors (SDR) and the delegation of the association of professional journalists (AJP) of Éditions de L’Avenir take note of this decision: Today, a page is turned. SDR and AJP will be attentive to the project that must be built, respecting all editorial staff, of course, but also all the teams of L’Avenir, which have kept the ship afloat despite the turbulence. Hoping that the latter will take advantage of the great opportunity he has to integrate into his press group the Our Future Cooperative created by L’Avenir staff, its readers, supporters, communities, etc.

The two organizations will also pay attention to the statutes of each and to the maintenance of all local newsrooms, respect for the independence of each newsroom in the press group, “in good intelligence“and”without new restructuring plan or social downgrade“. Before concluding: “The quality of information, the pluralistic offer of original content, proximity to readers are the DNA of Éditions de l’Avenir. The SDR and the AJP will take care of this tomorrow, as they have done in the past, in a constructive spirit and in dialogue.”

Unions worried

For the National Central of Employees (CNE), the announcement of the resumption of Editions de l’Avenir IPM “lhave the unpleasant feeling of being served a dish that we did not order“. “We do not make a trial of intention to the candidates who were in the running for the takeover of the newspaper, and we have no exclusives, but we do not know if the demands of the unions have been heard, as well as those of the cooperative , to be integrated into the new Board of Directors“, the union said in a statement.

The union linked to the CSC wonders if the IPM group really has the backbones strong enough to take over a third newspaper and to invest in this new tool. “We are worried about employment, because the association with a Belgian press group implies a series of economies of scale, which are likely to affect the administrative services, but also the editorial staff. ”

According to the CNE, l’Avenir is a complete newspaper, with its own tone, and cannot be emptied of its vision of sport, culture and national and international news: “At this time, we have no guarantees for use. As a reminder, the staff are barely emerging from a painful restructuring, the unions will not accept a new job clearance sale.

The union hopes to be around the table before decisions are made and to be heard before Enodia makes the final decision. LA sale must also still have the agreement of the guardianship and the competition authorities. The acquisition is expected to become effective around October.

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.