Business News
wissenmedia GmbH acquires Brockhaus traditional brand
Thursday 18. December 2008 - Concentration of activities in the encyclopaedia sector
Pending consent of anti-trust authorities, wissenmedia GmbH is set to take over all of the rights to the Brockhaus brand on 1 February 2009, including all contents and inventory of the bibliographic institute & F. A. Brockhaus AG. Through the takeover, wissenmedia can ensure the continuation of the publishing brand Brockhaus, one of the best known and most traditional brands in Germany, recognized by more than 93% of the population and going back to over 200 years in history. Wissenmedia is a part of inmediaONE], a member of the arvato AG Group. In the next few days representatives of the companies will register the planned transaction with the Federal Cartel Office to receive clearance under anti-trust law.
With the brands Bertelsmann Lexikon, WAHRIG, Chronik and Atlantica, wissenmedia is considered to be one of the leading reference book publishers in Europe. “By integrating Brockhaus into our publishing activities we are providing a solid basis to make sure that the encyclopaedic reference works of the brand Brockhaus will be published over the long term and to develop new high-quality reference books,” says Christoph Hünermann, managing director of wissenmedia GmbH. “Together with the parent company inmediaONE], the leading sales organisation for information and educational systems in the German-speaking market, we have been successfully following a strategy over the last few years of linking print media to online information on an equal footing. This brings together reliable tradition with innovation of media in a way that is oriented to the future. Purchasing Brockhaus branding rights and Brockhaus content is a unique chance to continue building on these activities.”
Plans to market Brockhaus substance only on the Internet in the future were refuted by Hünermann. “Both print and online encyclopaedias are well-established for the future. The Internet cannot replace the haptic and representative value of the book.” The sale of Brockhaus reference works will continue to be carried out through book retailers and – as has been the case since 2002 in the context of a successful sales cooperation – through the direct sales organisation of inmediaONE].
Moreover, it is planned to use the contents of Brockhaus and wissenmedia as a foundation for creating a new range of high-quality information products and also to make traditional German lexicography available internationally. Hünermann comments, “There are wissenmedia products in more than 30 countries of the world. We can imagine a similar situation for many of the Brockhaus products.”