A third interested party is courting Publigroupe
As reported by the NZZ am Sonntag, a third party has joined Tamedia and Swisscom in the battle for Publigroupe. The third party is reportedly a foreign company.
The newspaper bases this on "a person who is well informed about the processes within Publigroupe". The source does not want to reveal which company is involved - a non-disclosure agreement has been signed to provide insight into the figures. The author assumes that the person did not disclose the information without self-interest: speculation about another bidder could cause the share price to rise further. On Friday evening, the share price closed at just under CHF 211, significantly higher than the CHF 200 offered by Swisscom a week ago.
Speculation about the third competitor for Publigroupe is difficult: as many publishers and companies are currently looking for new digital business models and the attractive Local.ch portal is therefore likely to be in demand beyond the borders, the field of potential interested parties is large. One possible candidate would be the publishing house Axel Springer, which is currently focusing heavily on digital business and already holds 52 percent of the digital marketing company Zanox - Publigroupe owns the rest. However, when asked by NZZ am Sonntag, Axel Springer would not comment further on Publigroupe: They are not involved in the proceedings, they are not in talks and they do not comment on market speculation. (hae)
