German media conglomerate Axel Springer is in talks to acquire Axios, according to people familiar with the matter, continuing a consolidation of the digital media sector. The valuation under discussion is around $400 million, said one of the people.
AdWeek suggests this could be just another round in consolidation of similar sites:
Just last month, Axios was reportedly engaged in discussions with sports publisher The Athletic regarding an acquisition, according to reporting from The Wall Street Journal.
As the digital advertising industry grows more competitive, several publishers have used mergers and acquisitions as a tool for adding scale overnight, as was the case in the November pairing of BuzzFeed and HuffPost.
Axios reached 19.8 million unique visitors in August, up from 7 million a year prior, according to Comscore data reported by The Journal
Reports are Amazon has made a final offer for all of MGM which would add a significant content library to the Amazon Prime Video offering.
VOX: Why Amazon is Paying $9B for MGM
Short answers here: The media world is consolidating and there aren’t many targets left for a would-be acquirer. Amazon has spent many billions on video without much to show for it, and thinks owning a studio — and, crucially, the rights to the intellectual property the studio owns — could help it create Really Big Movies and TV Shows You Really Want To Watch. Not so much because it wants to own streaming, but because it wants you to keep coming to Amazon. MGM, meanwhile, has been trying to sell itself for years.
Reuters: Amazon pays to take MGM chess piece off the board
Cengage reported their preliminary 4thQ and full Year 2021. (Webcast)
From their press release: (Snapshot because of obnoxious formatting)
Dohle and Grant ‘Rethink’ the Book Business (Publishers Weekly)
Penguin Random House CEO Markus Dohle was joined by PRH author and organizational psychologist Adam Grant (Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know) on Monday in a live online conversation entitled "Rethinking Our New 'Old' Business: Why Books and Publishing are Flourishing."HMH released their first quarter results on May 6th (Press Release)
Highlights from the quarter include:
- Trailing twelve-month free cash flow of $72 million, an improvement of $77 million, demonstrating strong positive free cash flow generation
- Rapid year-over-year growth of 80% in Annualized Recurring Revenue (ARR) to $65 million. Net Retention Rate (NRR) was 142%.
- Connected Sales made up 51% of billings for the trailing twelve months ended March 31, 2021
- 42% of billings were digital for the trailing twelve months ending March 31, 2021
- Adjusted EBITDA improved $34 million to $15 million, marking the first time HMH produced positive Adjusted EBITDA in the first quarter since it became a public company
"We entered the new year keenly focused on executing our Digital First, Connected strategy. As our market stabilizes, our first quarter results represent a strong start to the new year. We continue to see impressive growth in important key performance indicators, positioning HMH amongst the largest and fastest growing companies in the edtech market,” said Jack Lynch, President and Chief Executive Officer of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
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