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PRESS RELEASE 2
July 12, 2005
Pressens Bild and Scanpix To Merge
The Swedish photo agencies Pressens Bild and Scanpix intend to form a new, joint photo agency that will be one of Northern Europe's leading photo agencies for high-quality pictures.
The new joint company will be owned equally by Bonnier AB and Scanpix Scandinavia AB, in which Schibsted ASA is the majority owner. The transaction affects 65 employees at the two companies.
Currently Pressens Bild has 40 employees and generated sales of SEK 66 M (about $8.4 million) in 2004. Scanpix has 26 employees and generated sales of SEK 41.7 M (about $5.3 million) in 2004.
Competition in the photo market has increased sharply and many international photo agencies now offer their services directly to the Swedish market. By merging Pressens Bild and Scanpix, operations with considerably greater breadth and content are established. These will provide the Swedish image market with both Swedish and international photographic material from Swedish and foreign photographers.
Anna Fornek Bergstr"m, currently president of Scanpix in Sweden, will be the president of the new company.
"The conditions for the new company to fare well in competition are favorable. The merger means that both customers and photo suppliers will be given increased opportunities with access to broader and stronger operations. At the end of the day, those who benefit are readers," says Anna Fornek Bergstr"m.
The intention is for the new company to be formed during the autumn. The transaction is conditional on the approval of the competition authorities concerned.
Photononstop Opens Office In Spain
The French photo agency Photononstop has opened an office in Spain. The Madrid Fotononstop office (www.photononstop.com uses Fidji, the database built by Photononstop and used in the Paris office. The software, made by LGC is available in five languages: French, Spanish, English, Polish and German.
Thanks to this database, Fotononstop is able to distribute different image collections in Spain and France. Photononstop also franchises the database to other agencies, allowing those that do not have the necessary technology to immediately acquire international rights to a database of 100,000 images. Photononstop is alwo inviting new partners to join its portal, for one-click distribution in France and Spain.
For more information contact Christian Delannoy at c.delannoy@photononstop.com
Photolibrary Group Acquires Garden Picture Library
The Photolibrary Group Ltd (www.photolibrary.com) has acquired Garden Picture Library a leading specialist source for inspirational images of gardens, flowers and gardening lifestyle. The library's files now contain up to 400,000 images, of which a growing percentage is available digitally. The collection covers all garden and flower related subjects; from plant portraits and garden design details to garden views, floral graphics and practical gardening.
Garden Picture Library (GPL) will join a rapidly expanding group, which includes both photolibrary.com and Oxford Scientific (OSF). In the coming months GPL will launch a fully e-commerce enabled website, allowing the merged group to continue its strategy of providing the picture buying community with easy access, fantastic imagery and unbeatable service across an ever growing subject range.
Glenn Parker, Photolibrary Group CEO, says " Garden Picture Library is a terrific addition to our group and once more provides us with a range of superb specialist images which cannot be obtained elsewhere. Their imagery is also very complementary to the natural world material available through OSF and provides an additional resource to our clients in the creative area. We strongly believe that we can further build GPL's success via our client-focused sales and marketing and an excellent web delivery of content via, our general site, www.photolibrary.com and our two specialist sites, www.osf.co.ukwww.osf.co.uk and now, www.gardenpicture.com.
Sally Wood, Managing Partner at GPL, says "Photolibrary have welcomed Garden Picture Library into their group with a real enthusiasm for our collection and it's potential, which is not just refreshing, but incredibly infectious! From a practical point of view it will allow us access to a much wider infrastructure of resources than previously available. In the coming months we will be able to accelerate our image digitization program, which will be a huge bonus for our photographers, allowing a much wider reach for our content, whilst continuing to service both our traditional editorial markets and creative clients alike. Our core aim will remain true to creating the most definitive collection of garden and plant imagery worldwide. In short, we expect to see new growth ahead!
Recently, Photolibrary also announced that two major French royalty free collections, Goodshoot and Photo Alto collections can now be sourced online at www.photolibrary.com. Combined the two collection offer over 35,000 single images and 400 CD's. Photolibrary's commitment is to source images globally to provide a global perspective or creatives.