Yellow Pages

Fast Search & Transfer has announced it landed a deal with the Finnish directory publisher Fonecta, which is part of the PE-backed European Directories organization. Here is the release from FAST. Here is what we picked up from Norwegian News…

Here is what we have found about the bids that have come in for the 60 percent stake in Spanish publisher TPI currently owned by Telefonica, Spain's leading telecom. This is from the AFX news service. Note an apparent contraction…

Just got my hands on a copy of the "Style at Home Special Issue — Home Improvement" produced by Canada's Yellow Pages Group and media partner Transcontinental Media. The product was recently distributed in Toronto. The joint venture between the…

Each year I attend a few conferences put on by other companies, both because they tend to have different speakers, but also because it enables me to pick up some ideas that can enhance our events. Today I went to…

Neil Steinberg, a columnist at one of my local newspapers, has a peculiar obsession with Yellow Pages. You might find his take amusing. It begins down the column a bit, after his brief take on the Iraq war (which I…

Word from Italy is that Seat Pagine Gialle, Italy's leading directory organization, is not interested in buying Telefonica's 60 percent stake in Telefnica Publicidad e Informacin, Spain's top YP publisher. TPI is on the market to raise cash for Telefnica…

It appears next week is the deadline for initial bids on the Spanish publisher Telefonica Publicidad e Informacion, and there are reported to be five suitors: PagesJaunes (France Telecom), Yell Group and three private equity consortia. Saw this today on…

As we get ready for our Drilling Down event in San Jose later this month, we are also setting our sights on Directory Driven Commerce 2006, our directory industry event, which happens this Sept. 18-20 in Los Angeles. We are…

A Reuters report today reveals that Britain's Yell Group has taken formal steps toward submitting a bid for the 60 percent stake in the Spanish publisher Telefonica Publicidad e Informacion currently owned by Telefonica. Yell has retained Goldman Sachs to…

Yesterday, I attended the ADM regional meeting held here in Chicago, where I maintain the Midwest regional office for The Kelsey Group (which consists of me, a computer, phone and a tiny fridge filled with Diet Cokes). The ADM is…

Looks like two of the largest self storage companies — Public Storage and Shurgard — will be combining forces. Public Storage announced that it will be buying Shurgard for US$3 billion. The combined company will have 2,100 locations in 38…

Charles Laughlin pointed out an article from the Nashville Business Times about Verizon's entry into that market. Kathy Harless identified Nashville as one of the expansion markets at DDC '05 in her keynote address. Here is the article.

According to a story in today's New York Times AT&T (formerly SBC) is near a deal to acquire BellSouth:AT&T is expected to pay about $65 billion for BellSouth, the country's third largest phone company, which operates in a nine-state region…

The story is all over the financial press today that AT&T will acquire BellSouth for US$67 billion. Based on 2005 revenues, the combined Yellow Pages divisions of the two companies will have total revenues of about US$5.8 billion. I'd say…

A long list of potential suitors for Telefonica Publicidad e Informacion has emerged that invokes Claude Raines from "Casablanca": "Round up the usual suspects !" The parade of private equities whose names are listed among those at least interested in…

As I was doing some research on attorney spending online I stumbled across this blog on legal advertising, which basically argues with some anecdotal evidence that the print directory is delivering less value to lawyer-advertisers today than it has in…

Spanish telecom Telefonica may be ready to sell its 59.9 percent stake in the directory publisher Telefonica Publicidad e Informacion. One of TPI's apparent suitors is Apax Group, which is a former part owner of Britain's Yell Group, along with…

Interesting story in yesterday's National Post (Canada). The topic is not entirely new, the possible acquisition of a U.S. publisher by Canada's Yellow Pages Group. The article does provide a sourced comment from YPG's CFO, and it offers some detailed…

If you just read the headline from each of the companies reporting on the new national syndication research results, you could be excused if you thought that a lot of companies are the most used Yellow Pages directories. Some companies…

Listened to Eniro's 2005 earnings call yesterday. A number of interesting details, which we will explore in Local Media Journal next week. One key revelation was that print revenues in Norway are going to decline by 10 percent in 2006.…