Annex Media buys print and digital B2B properties from Glacier Media for $19.7 million

[This post has been updated] The business-to-business magazine media in Canada is significantly altered with the announcement late Friday that Glacier Media Inc. has sold off most of its trade media magazine properties in Toronto-based Business Information Group (BIG) to Annex Business Media and Newcom Business Media for $19.65 million. 

Annex and Newcom now acquire 67 trade publications, related websites and other digital assets, giving it more than 100 properties and an additional 230 employees. With that, what had been the largest privately owned b2b company has made another major leap to become the biggest b2b publishing company in Canada. Annex has a reputation for running very lean operations, sharing such things as production, circulation, digital, administration and sales. 

[Update: Newcom Business Media, which is a family-owned company started in 1987, acquired 18 print and digital publications and two trade shows as part of the deal, including Truck News, Truck West and Motor Truck Fleet Executive. These will now join Newcom's other transport-related titles Today's Trucking, Truck and Trailer and Transport Routier.  Also acquired were Scott's Directories and titles in dental,insurance industries and meetings and travel.

Ownership of the new acquisitions will be evenly distributed between the two companies. “It’s called the Annex-Newcom limited partnership.” Annex CEO Mike Fredericks [told Mastheadonline] “We’re 50/50 partners with Alex Papanou (BIG vp) operating it as our president. We will continue to operate our private companyies—effectively it’s a third company that sits between us.

With the acquisition comes the inevitability of similar titles being in direct competition with each other. “We’re going to take our time to study the marketplace and see what’s best,” Fredericks said. “So in the next number of months it will be business as usual and they will continue to compete with each other.”]

With this transaction, Glacier effectively exits a huge swath of the b2b sector (with the exception of Food In Canada, the Northern Miner and the ERIS environmental data company, which it is keeping.) And in the process it is unloading publications it took over in 2006 in the breakup of Conrad Black's  Hollinger Canadian Newspapers, Limited, of which BIG was a subsidiary. Some of the other titles being sold now to Annex were bought by Glacier in 2011 in a purchase from Rogers Publishing Limited.

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Glacier buys Whistler newsmagazine Pique

Pique, the free weekly newsmagazine in Whistler, BC has been bought by Glacier Media Group from Bob Barnett, who owned Pique Publishing. Barnett and his late wife Kathy started the publication in 1994. Glacier owns the major competitor called the Whistler Question, which is part of the sprawling network of more than 100 community papers it owns across Canada. It's not known if the two papers will be merged.

"The media world is not getting any easier for independents," Barnett told Business in Vancouver (a Glacier publication). "I'm still interested in the job, but it's not what it used to be. Glacier has resources that they can bring to the table while everyone works to figure out how to survive in today's media market. 

"It took some time to get my head around the sale. There is a lot of pride in building this from scratch. I took pride in being independent. But it was time."

TC Media to sell ads for Glacier Media's online properties

TC Media has announced a strategic digital partnership with Glacier Media Inc., to sell national online advertising sales on Glacier Media’s 60 local websites in western Canada. In turn, Glacier Media will distribute e-flyers and digital promotional offers from TC Media’s advertisers on its properties.

“This new partnership with Glacier Media, an important media player in Western Canada, strengthens our positioning in that region”, said Dominique-Sébastien Forest, Vice President, National Digital Solutions, TC Media in a release.

“Partnering is one of the quickest, most effective ways of expanding and growing a business. This is not just a representation agreement for Glacier Media, but a true marriage of digital strengths between companies to strategically support each other’s long term vision”, said Shelly Wilson, Vice President Digital Sales, Glacier Media.

And then there was one: Canadian Plastics absorbs Plastics in Canada

In what was clearly its strategic intention all along, the Business Information Group (Glacier Media Inc.) is erasing a former publishing rival Plastics in Canada, leaving the 68-year-old Canadian Plastics as the only trade book serving the Canadian plastics industry.

PiC had ceased appearing in print in June 2010, but Rogers Publishing Limited kept the brand alive through a website and an e-letter until May, when it was sold as part of a package of 15 trade pubs and digital brands to Glacier's Business Information Group. The erstwhile arch-rivalry went back to the days when Plastics in Canada, had been a Southam Business Publications title. At that time Southam matched Rogers title-for-title in many trade publishing categories. 

At the end of the month, all traces of PiC will be folded into Canadian Plastics and subscribers to the e-letter will now receive its weekly e-letter instead.

Glacier Media buys a third of Rogers Publishing's b2b magazine properties

[This post has been updated]In what is a major rationalization of b2b publishing in Canada, Glacier Media Inc has announced the purchase of  15 trade magazines from Rogers Publishing Limited as well as associated digital properties, trade shows and databases that were key parts of its business and professional publishing group. This is about one-third of the Rogers business and professional titles (the company has 55 consumer and b2b titles and 45 digital properties) Publications such as Food in Canada, Le Bulletin des agriculteurs, Canadian Packaging and Emballages, HPAC and Meetings & Incentive Travel (including Incentiveworks, Canada''s largest trade show for the meetings, incentive travel and promotions industry) will be integrated into Glacier's Business Information Group. [Update: Other titles included are Canadian Plant  and  Canadian Plant West, Canadian Metalworking, Plastics in Canada,  Materials Management &Distribution, Purchasing  B2B, Design Engineering, Hardware Merchandising, Canadian  Contractor and PCC, On-Site, Canadian ManufacturingOnline and Frasers.com.

Since several of these titles are direct competitors with existing Glacier titles, it seems likely that over time there will be some rationalization. For example Glacier's Canadian Plastics and Plastics in Canada. ]

The transaction (for which terms have not been disclosed) is to close May 27.

A statement to staff from CEO Brian Segal said that the titles sold were no longer core to the business strategy of Rogers Publishing, which henceforth will be concentrating in the financial services, health and medical care sectors :

"In  reaching this agreement, the transition of our employees was a key  consideration. With this in mind, I am happy to confirm that all 63  individuals who operate these properties (who represent about 7% of  the total Publishing team) are being offered positions by Glacier.They will begin moving to their new offices in Toronto and Montreal  in the coming days...

"While transitions of this sort can be challenging, we are confident that Glacier understands the place many of these titles hold in terms of their legacy within the history of Canadian publishing, and their markets will be well-served in their new home. The leaders at Glacier also understand and appreciate the talents of their new  employees and are keen to work with them."

Glacier has been aggressively building a portfolio of print, electronic and online media; its BIG trade publishing group  is largely built upon titles acquired from Hollinger, many of which were direct competitors with Rogers titles. Among Glacier magazines are Business in Vancouver, Canadian Cattlemen, The Daily Oil Bulletin, The Northern Miner and New Technology Magazine. Glacier also is the largest publisher of farm titles, particularly The Western Producer. (As an aside, Glacier's name comes from its original bottled water business before it morphed into a major media player.)

This is a major shift for Rogers and should probably be viewed in light of major management changes at Rogers, including the announcement that CEO Brian Segal is leaving the company. One of the people said to be considered to replace him is John Milne, head of the business and professional group.  There has always been speculation that Rogers -- whose major emphasis is its cable, wireless and broadcasting business, might want to unload its print publications at the right price. Clearly what Glacier was offering for these 15 magazines and related digital properties would qualify. 

One wrinkle that will have to be ironed out is membership of the Rogers b2b titles in Magazines Canada. This week it was announced that the Canadian Business Press -- a shadow of its former self with the defection of Rogers' titles to Magazines Canada -was giving up being a membership organization and becoming a foundation principally concerned with supporting its annual Kenneth R. Wilson awards program. Glacier was one of the remaining mainstays of CBP who had not joined MC. Now, it owns 15 titles that do belong and the question is whether this will result in Glacier becoming more involved in the big tent industry association or pulling its newly acquired magazines out.

• Glacier press release
• CP wire story