JMG eyeing Playboy and Voyage

Switzerland-based JMG Publishing House, the publisher of Cosmopolitan, CKM and Shape, is interested in buying Playboy and Voyage, a travel magazine published by Vipress. "Our Swiss headquarters is talking to them (Vipress), but we're not the only candidates," said Urszula Dziewit, the publishing director of JMG Publishing. "We're generally interested in acquiring a new title, but in the case of Vipress it would be a package of two (titles)." According to Dziewit, the Swiss publisher is also working on a new magazine to be launched next year. "We have two options: our own concept and an imported format," she said. "We'd like to have something new by next year." JMG's current magazines are selling well, she said. Cosmopolitan's monthly sales range from 120,000 to 130,000 issues. "Our ad revenue dropped, though, but most publishers have the same problems," Dziewit said. "Right now we have an average of 30 advertising pages per issue, but we hope that the last quarter will bring an increase of 10 pages." *** Agora, one of Poland's biggest media companies and the publisher of the daily Gazeta Wyborcza, last week completed the first stage of buying Art Marketing Syndicate (AMS), a Poznań-based outdoor advertising company. Agora purchased 501,195 AMS shares for more than zł. 1 million ($244,500). The acquired shares account for 11.89% of AMS's share capital and 9.99% of all votes at the company's general shareholders meeting. In the second stage of the transaction, Agora will purchase 200,025 preferred, registered shares of AMS, which are not admitted to public trading, and the media giant will ultimately hold 17% of the company's initial capital. Under the agreement signed by the two companies in June this year, Agora will nominate AMS's management board. According to Anna Borys-Karwacka, Agora's spokeswoman, the candidates will be picked up after the second stage of the transaction is concluded. If Agora buys AMS's entire initial capital, it would pay zł. 172.5 million ($42 million). The deal with AMS has been in the works for the past two years and is another step in Agora's expansion as a media group. Apart from Gazeta Wyborcza, Agora also publishes 12 magazines. Since 1996, the company has acquired more than 24 local stations. It also operates the Internet portal gazeta.pl and publishes two free press titles. Through last year, AMS owned 31% of all billboards and 66% of city lights, according to estimates by the Outdoor Advertising Chamber. In 2001, AMS's debt reached zł. 78 million ($19 million).