Italy’s De Agostini S.p.A. is a family-owned international group, founded in 1901 and controlled by B&D Holding. The holding company is organized as a financial conglomerate that operates in the publishing, gaming, media communications and the financial sector. The sub-holding firm De Agostini Editore is present in 30 countries with publications in 13 languages. The group’s publishing businesses include De Agostini Publishing, De Agostini Libri, Editions Atlas France/Suisse, and Digital De Agostini.

De Agostini Publishing creates partworks and engages in direct marketing, with a production that includes sample collections, hobby courses, educational and edutainment products for children, trading cards, video, and products for digital devices.

Editions Atlas France and Editions Atlas Suisse operate in direct marketing, mainly in French and German-speaking countries.

De Agostini Libri coordinates and manages the publishing activities on the Italian market, focusing on the production of books, guides, cartographic editions and scholarly publishing. De Agostini Scuola S.p.A. is one of the leading scholarly publishers, selling to schools and institutions of all levels.

Digital De Agostini was formed to develop the presence of De Agostini on digital platforms, including television, online, and mobile handsets. Digital De Agostini produces and manages original editorial content.

Analysis & Key Developments

Financial

The group has not yet published its turnover figure for 2014. Total publishing revenues fell by 10.3% to 1.12 billion EUR from 1.25 billion EUR. This decline is mainly due to the revenue drop from the Partworks division, from 747 million EUR in 2012 to 630 million EUR in fiscal 2013. The Direct Marketing division recorded a decline of 19 million EUR. The company cited the consumer spending crisis along with launches in Eastern Europe and negative exchange rate effects to explain the Partworks decline.

Publishing EBITDA was down by 4 million EUR to 43 million EUR in 2013, mainly due to lower revenues.

Internal organization

As part of the asset portfolio reorganization, the Group sold the Centro Europeo di Formazione (CEF Italia) and UTET Scienze Mediche business divisions in 2013.

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