There are already potential buyers for some of Impresa’s magazines

  • ECO News
  • 30 August 2017

After having announced the sale of the majority of their businesses in the publishing segment, Impresa's CEO told its employees there are already potential buyers for some of the group's magazines.

The president of the Executive Board of the group Impresa told the Workers’ Council from Impresa Publishing that there are already some potential buyers for the company’s magazines, whose sale they intend “to conclude as soon as possible”.

Impresa Publishing holds the Portuguese magazines Activa, Blitz, Caras, Caras Decoração, Courrier Internacional, Exame, Exame Informática, Jornal de Letras, Telenovelas, TV Mais, Visão, Visão História, Visão Júnior and the newspaper Expresso. In a press release, its Workers’ Council stated that the group’s CEO Francisco Pinto Balsemão informed them that “the group will continue assessing its portfolio and it intends to sell the majority, if not all, of the 13 publications on the table, in order to focus on the TV channel Sic and Expresso, because they have a greater potential for the digital and audiovisual areas”.

In a meeting held this Tuesday, the president of the Executive Board of the group Impresa told the workers’ representatives from Impresa Publishing that “there are already some potential buyers for the company’s magazines; the administration intends to conclude the sale as soon as possible”. However, the Workers’ Council further states that they chose not to disclose any deadlines yet.

According to the Workers’ Council, Pinto Balsemão committed to assessing the possibility of “speaking to workers in due time, in order to personally explain the group’s situation”, further committing to “maintain the Workers’ Council, and, consequently, workers, up to date on the events connected to the sale”.

This Tuesday’s meeting was a request from the Workers’ Council, which requested “information about the situation of Impresa, namely about Impresa Publishing“, after the group announced their desire to sell some of the group’s publications within a “strategic repositioning” of their activity, namely of “reducing their display in the magazine sector and focusing primarily on the digital and audiovisual components”. In spite of “understanding the fragile situation of the group”, the Workers’ Council has shown their concerns for the future of Impresa Publishing employees. The Council stated that if those 13 magazines closed, “more than 100 people” would be compromised.

Analysts from BPI Research consider the publishing unit as a whole (newspapers and magazines) represents 8% of their assessment of Impresa. The investment bank assesses the group’s shares at a target-price of 0.45 euros per share, assessing the listed company at 75.6 million euros. This means that the magazines and newspapers are worth a little over six million euros.