Strategic decisions at PubliGroupe: local.ch and Zanox remain online growth drivers, further optimisation steps at Publicitas; partial sale of the real estate portfolio, reporting in Swiss GAAP FER, end of H. P. Rohner’s double mandate
 
Lausanne, 1 December 2011 – PubliGroupe is initiating strategic measures to sustainably strengthen its competitive position in an increasingly digital market environment. At the Investors’ Day in Zurich, the Group will present decisions aimed at securing its profitability for the long term. The sale of a majority of the real estate portfolio as well as change of the accounting standards are planned for 2012. CEO Hans-Peter Rohner will be relinquishing his double mandate as of the 2012 General Assembly and concentrating on his role as Chairman of the Board of Directors. For 2011, PubliGroupe is projecting less profit than originally anticipated due to the more subdued market environment for Media Sales and its traditional print business. Search & Find with local.ch and the key participation with DMS, Zanox are exhibiting positive development slightly above expectations.
 
The structural changes within the advertising industry are accelerating the shift in favour of digital markets. In this context, the Board of Directors of PubliGroupe has resolved on the segment level:
 
Media Sales with new, far-reaching measures to ensure profitability and an increase in digital revenues. The implementation under Beat Roeschlin, CEO Publicitas, will be overseen by a steering committee of PubliGroupe board members headed by Pascal Böni.

Search & Find and the local.ch platform will remain a central strategic pillar of the Group, which will continue to be run together with Swisscom. At the same time, its excellent market position will be further expanded in the online sector and to an even greater extent in the fast-growing field of mobile search applications. It will profit from the pooled competencies of the shareholders Swisscom and PubliGroupe under CEO Edi Bähler.

Digital & Marketing Services (DMS) will continue to concentrate on the successful administration and development of the digital portfolio, specifically the two growth drivers Zanox with Axel Springer and Namics as central pillars of the Group’s participations, under the leadership of Renato Martignoni, CFO and COO of this segment.
 
on the Group level:
 
Sale of a large part of the real estate portfolio in 2012, with proceeds largely distributed to
PubliGroupe shareholders.

Change to the Domestic Standard of the SIX Swiss Stock Exchange and switch to Swiss GAAP FER accounting rules in the first half of 2012. In this connection, the companies managed in partnership with third parties (zanox and local.ch) are to be consolidated according to the pro-portional method. This will allow more precise disclosure of their business development.
End of the double mandate of Hans-Peter Rohner as of the 2012 General Assembly.

 
Further optimisation steps at Publicitas
 
Building on the decentralised strengths in print marketing, the marketing of digital and multimedia platforms are to be rapidly and sustainably expanded and made more dynamic. The marketing of advertising space in cinemas will continue to be another important foothold.
 
The comprehensive local presence in Switzerland will be upheld. The field sales staff will increasingly serve its clients on the basis of mobile workplaces and the back office staff will be consolidated by 2014 from the current 35 locations into 3 centres for the individual language regions. With activities in 21 countries on four continents, the international network will be concentrated in markets where Publicitas represents major media providers and maintains a relevant client base. The decision was also taken to digitalise and harmonise order processing from “end-to-end” with the goal of becoming faster, cheaper and more attractive for all partners. Taken together, these measures at Publicitas should boost the operative margin by CHF 18-24 million on the EBIT level by 2015.
 
The restructuring efforts will result in a reduction of approximately 200 employees by 2015, more than half of whom are located abroad. The staff reductions will also be attained through natural fluctuation. The digital segment will see continued investments and the creation of new jobs. Publicitas currently maintains a staff of 1,300 employees worldwide.
 
Starting in January 2012, a steering committee made up of PubliGroupe board members will oversee the next stage of optimisations at Publicitas. Alongside his role as a PubliGroupe board member, Pascal Böni will serve as chairman of this committee. He will support the management of Media Sales under Beat Roeschlin in strategic matters and in the implementation of optimisation measures.
 

Partial sale of real estate portfolio and conversion of the accounting standard
 
PubliGroupe has decided to sell a portion of its real estate portfolio in 2012. In Lausanne and Bern, four properties are being put up for sale. The net proceeds in the mid double-digit million range will be largely distributed to PubliGroupe shareholders. The sale of these properties does not change anything in regard to PubliGroupe’s holding location, which will remain in Lausanne.
 
PubliGroupe decided to change the listing of its shares from the Main Segment to the Domestic Seg-ment of the SIX Swiss Exchange during the first half of 2012. This change of segment will be accompa-nied by a change in accounting standards from IFRS to Swiss GAAP FER. This will provide greater reporting transparency and simplification in regard to the companies managed in partnership with third parties (Zanox and local.ch). It is planned to replace the current, often complex method of consolidation with the proportional consolidation method. This will allow shareholders of PubliGroupe to follow more precisely the development of these two important participations. In addition, the goodwill related to acquisitions will be offset with equity. Other simplifications will be reached on notes related to pension liabilities and financial instruments. Other rules ensuring transparency, such as the segment reporting, will be maintained.
 
A detailed presentation of the effects of the transition and the timeline will be communicated together with the 2011 annual report on 9 March 2012.

 
Hans-Peter Rohner to concentrate on Chairmanship of the Board of Directors
 
As originally planned for a limited period, the double mandate of Hans-Peter Rohner, current CEO (since 2002) and Chairman of the Board (since 2009), will be coming to an end as of the 2012 General Assembly (25 April 2012). Hans-Peter Rohner will continue in his position as Chairman of the Board of Directors, subject to re-election to the board by the General Assembly. The future operative management structures of the Group will be decided and communicated in early March 2012.
 
Hans-Peter Rohner, CEO and Chairman of the Board of PubliGroupe: “On behalf of PubliGroupe’s future, we have reached a number of important decisions. Local.ch shall continue to be jointly developed together with Swisscom, and Publicitas will establish itself even more firmly as a digital player. We still  believe in print products. But we are convinced that advertising revenues in this segment will not stabilise over the short term. We want to position ourselves in such a way that generates value even with much lower volumes on a non-exclusive representation basis. Online and mobile are central to the future of advertising and our Group will focus its energies even more sharply in this direction.”
 

PubliGroupe with less profit for 2011, Media Sales with decline in the print business
 
PubliGroupe had been assuming that the full-year operative results (EBIT) for 2011 would show improvement over the previous year, based on the generally positive print advertising market environment observed through the beginning of summer 2011. Today PubliGroupe is forecasting sales of CHF 1.3 to 1.4 billion for 2011 as a whole and an EBIT slightly below the previous year. Net income will be correspondingly lower than in the previous year, also due to the considerably lower level of one-off positive special items compared to 2010. In particular, Media Sales and Publicitas have suffered over the past months from an increasingly difficult market environment in the traditional print business. Search & Find with local.ch and the key participation with DMS, Zanox are yielding a positive development, above last year’s figures and slightly above expectations.