Planeta is the leading Spanish-language publishing group in Spain and Latin America. It is also prominent in Portugal and France, where it owns Editis, the country’s second largest publishing company. Planeta is continuing to expand with international partnerships. In 2016 it opened a new publishing house in Italy, called DeAPlaneta Libri, a joint venture between De Agostini Editore and Grupo Planeta, two traditional partners since 1984 in Spain.
Grupo Planeta is present in 25 countries, with 100 imprints and a catalogue of 15,000 authors.
Aside from book publishing, the group has shares in the newspaper La Razón; the television company Grupo AtresMedia, which includes two of Spain’s top three channels, Antena 3 and La Sexta; and the country’s second-largest radio station, Onda Cero. Planeta’s Learning and university division reaches more than 100,000 students from MBA to university degrees in Barcelona, Madrid, Paris (since 2016) and online.
The owner family’s Fundación José Manuel Lara is a main sponsor of cultural events.
Analysis & Key Developments
Financial
The revenues of Grupo Planeta in 2016 include the Publishing, Media, Learning and universities divisions along with sales channels from bookstores, reading clubs and online. The total increased to 3.2 billion EUR. The consolidation of the publishing division with increased consumption led to growth in the book business in Spain that was considerably higher than the development of the overall market. The same trend was seen in France and Latin America. In the publishing division Grupo Planeta and the Italian Grupo De Agostini created a joint venture in Italy called DeA Planeta Libri. (See the company profile for De Agostini.)
Revenue growth was also impacted by Planeta’s media division. Grupo Atresmedia, the market leader in television and radio in Spain, improved its results due to the overall economic climate in the country.
The consolidation of Grupo Planeta Learning and University Division in 2016 further impacted revenue, with an expansion in the French market from the acquisition of ESLSCA (École Supérieure Libre des Sciences Commerciales Appliquées), a business school based in Paris with over 65 years of excellence in management education. Paris ESLSCA Business School, l’Ecole de Guerre Economique, IFAM and ISAM are all under the umbrella of Groupe ESLSCA. The main activities of this division are concentrated in Barcelona and Madrid where they develop an ambitious professional training plan in partnership with the Spanish Chamber of Commerce and a large number of small and medium sized enterprises in different industries.
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