Lagardère sells French magazines for €52m

Magazines. As part of its strategic refocusing around book publishing and retail travel, the Lagardère group completed the sale of most of its magazines in France (employing some 650 people) including: Elle, Version Femina, Art & Décoration, Télé 7 Jours, France Dimanche, Ici Paris and Public, to Czech Media Invest (CMI). The Lagardère group remains the owner of the Elle brand but has licensed its use to CMI in France, and to Hearst Corp internationally under a US$650m deal in 2011. The price of the French deal was €52m, for a business which, in 2018, generated revenue of c€239m and adjusted EBIT of c€22m. So Lagardere, whose Hachette subsidiary was once the world’s largest magazines group, has drawn down the curtain on almost 200 years.