| Type | Publicly traded Société en commandite par actions (Euronext: MMB) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Conglomerate |
| Founded | 1992 |
| Headquarters | Paris, France |
| Key people | Arnaud Lagardère (General and managing partner), Xavier de Sarrau (Chairman of the supervisory board) |
| Products | Books, magazines, e-publishing, radio stations, audiovisual production, online content, sport and entertainment broadcast rights, retail outlets, advertising sales brokerage, holding in EADS |
| Revenue | €7.966 billion (2010)[1] |
| Operating income | €343 million (2010)[1] |
| Profit | €163 million (2010)[1] |
| Total assets | €10.90 billion (end 2010)[1] |
| Total equity | €4.018 billion (end 2010)[1] |
| Employees | 28,510 (FTE, average 2010)[1] |
| Subsidiaries | Lagardère Active, Lagardère Services, Lagardère Publishing, Lagardère Unlimited, EADS (7.5%) |
| Website | www.lagardere.com |
Lagardère (IPA: [la.gaʁ.dɛʁ]) is a French-based multinational conglomerate headquartered in the 16th arrondissement of Paris.[2] The group once covered a broad range of industries but is now largely focused on the media sector, in which it is one of the world’s leading companies. Headed by Arnaud Lagardère, the firm does business in nearly 40 countries and is structured around four main business lines: its book and electronic publishing division (Lagardère Publishing) includes the major imprint Hachette Livre; while the Lagardère Active unit encompasses newspaper, digital media and magazine publishing (including Hachette Filipacchi Médias), radio and television broadcasting and production and advertising sales. The Lagardère Services unit includes store retail, largely in airports and railway stations, and Lagardère Unlimited engages in sports and talent management, sports academies, event management, marketing of sports broadcast rights and management of sports venues.
The company also holds a 7.5% stake in the aerospace and defence firm EADS, which was originally created from, amongst other entities, the Lagardère subsidiary Aérospatiale-Matra.
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Louis Hachette’s 1826 acquisition of Parisian bookstore Brédif was the starting point for what would one day be the Lagardère Group. Hachette published magazines dedicated to public entertainment (Le Journal pour Tous [Everyone’s Newspaper], 1855), and also took part in publishing the Dictionnaire de la Langue française (Dictionary of the French Language) with his friend Littré beginning in 1863. In 1953, Hachette launched Le Livre de poche with Henri Filipacchi, and it is still a market leader.
Created in 1945, Matra (Mechanics/Aviation/Traction) was the company behind several technological projects: creating a twin-engine airplane prototype able to travel at 800 km/h, breaking the sound barrier at Mach 1.4 in vertical flight for the first time in Europe. In 1990, Matra Espace and the aerospace division of Gec Marconi came together to create Matra Marconi Space, the top European space company. Matra Hautes Technologies joined the Aerospace industry, and officially became Aerospatiale Matra on June 11, 1999. EADS (the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company) was founded on July 10, 2000 from the merger of Aérospatiale Matra SA, Aeronauticas SA, and DaimlerChrysler Aerospace AG. It officially launched the A380 program that same year. The aircraft would make its first flight in 2005.
In 1963, Jean-Luc Lagardère was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Matra, with 1,450 employees. In 1981, he took the reins at Hachette. In 1988, the group’s first major success abroad was the acquisition of Grolier Encyclopedias in the United States.
In 1992, after a major year-long restructuring, Matra Hachette and Lagardère group were born. In the early 1990s, Jean-Luc Lagardère turned to television, and became head of La Cinq.
In 1994, Hachette Livre launched the first multimedia encyclopedia, Axis, which gave it a dominant position in multimedia. In 1994, Matra Hachette Multimedia presented EPSIS, the first image-substitution process for advertising. In 1998, Hachette Multimedia was born of the consolidation of the multimedia division of Hachette Livre and Grolier Interactive (online educational services). A strategic agreement signed in 2000 by Lagardère and Deutsche Telekom to provide Internet service led to the merger of T-Online and Club-Internet.
In 1995, with the acquisition of the top USC magazine chain in Canada, Hachette became the third largest operator in the international retail press trade. In 1996, Hachette Livre acquired the Hatier Group. In 1997, Hachette Livre won a string of literary prizes, including the Prix Goncourt and the Prix de l'Académie française with La Bataille (The Battle) by Patrick Rambaud (Grasset). That same year, Europe 1 and Club-Internet launched Europe Info, the number-one online news service on the French-language web. In 2000, Hachette Distribution Services created Relay, an international brand specializing in selling media products at public points of sale. That same year, Lagardère and Canal+ got into digital television. In 2001, Lagardère acquired the Virgin Stores brand and Virgin Megastore in France. Hachette Filipacchi Médias has continued its growth by taking a 42% stake in the Marie-Claire Group.
With the death of Jean-Luc Lagardère on March 14, 2003, Arnaud Lagardère was appointed General Partner of Lagardère SCA. That same year, Lagardère sold off its interest in Renault as well as its automotive engineering business. In 2004, the Group acquired 40% of Editis (formerly Vivendi Universal Publishing). Lagardère took advantage of the growth of TNT to launch the youth channel Gulli in partnership with France Télévisions.
In 2006, aware that Sports was a buoyant market, Arnaud Lagardère created Lagardère Sports, a new branch of the Group specializing in sports economics and sporting rights. Lagardère also became the new franchisee of the Croix-Catelan (Bois de Boulogne, Paris) and the Rue Eblé sports and recreation sites, for a twenty-year period. On May 31, 2010, Lagardère Sports changed its name and became Lagardère Unlimited, a new branch of the group specializing in sport industry and entertainment.[3]
Seventeen years after the creation of the limited partnership disputed by an American activist, the SCA (the French limited partnership with shares ) was confirmed by nearly 80% of shareholders at the Shareholders Meeting on April 27, 2010.[4]
On 28 March 2011, Lagardère SCA signed a contract for the sale of its international magazine business (102 titles) to Hearst Corporation for €651 million.[5] The transaction includes a Master License Agreement (MLA) relating to the ELLE trademark in the 15 countries affected by the transfer, in return for which the Group will receive an annual recurring royalty payment. Lagardère will retain complete ownership of its magazine business operations in France and of its ELLE trademark throughout the world. The closing of the transaction remains subject to approval by local partners in certain countries as well as to certain customary governmental approvals and antitrust clearances in certain jurisdictions.
The management structure of Lagardère reflects its status as a Société en commandite par actions (partnership limited by shares): the firm is led by general and managing partner Arnaud Lagardère[6][7] who heads an executive committee comprising four co-managing partners (Philippe Camus, Pierre Leroy, Dominique D'Hinnin and Thierry Funck-Brentano) and spokesperson and chief of external relations Ramzi Khiroun.
Each of the four main divisions of the company has its own chairman and CEO, with Lagardère Publishing led by Arnaud Nourry, Lagardère Active by Denis Olivennes,[8] Lagardère Services by Dag Rasmussen and Lagardère Unlimited by Arnaud Lagardère.
The company is overseen by a largely independent supervisory board, which has been chaired by Xavier de Sarrau since April 2010. Its other members are Bernard Arnault, Martine Chêne, Georges Chodron de Courcel, François David, Pierre Lescure, Raymond Lévy, Jean-Claude Magendie, Christian Marbach, Javier Monzón, Amélie Oudéa Castéra, Didier Pineau-Valencienne, François Roussely, Susan M. Tolson and Patrick Valroff.
| Year | 2009 | 2010 | ∆ 2009/2010 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Net sales (M€) | 7,892 | 7,966 | +0.9% |
| Recurring EBIT before associates (in M€) | 461 | 462 | NA |
| Net interest expense | (82) | (82) | - |
| Income tax expense | (123) | (67) | - |
| Consolidated net income | 164 | 194 | +18.8% |
| Consolidated net income attributable to the Group | 137 | 163 | +19.3% |
| Adjusted net income attributable to the Group (excl. contribution from EADS) | 262 | 284 | +8.4% |
| Year | 2010 |
|---|---|
| France | 34.4% |
| European Union | 36.2% |
| Rest of Europe | 8.3% |
| USA and Canada | 12.2% |
| Middle East | 0.4% |
| Asia-Oceania | 6.6% |
| Other (Africa, Latin America) | 1.8% |
| % of capital | % of voting rights | |
|---|---|---|
| Lagardère Capital & Management [11] | 9.62 | 14.01 |
| Treasury stock | 3.13 | 0.00 |
| Employees and Group Savings Plan investment funds | 1.34 | 2.18 |
| Individual investors | 6.88 | 9.94 |
| French institutional investors | 15.71 | 17.54 |
| Non-French institutional investors | 63.32 | 56.33 |
| Total | 100 | 100 |
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