France: Italian becomes second shareholder of Libération

Posted by Bertrand Pecquerie on January 4, 2007 at 6:40 PM

On Jan. 4 2007, Carlo Caracciolo acquired around 30% of Libération, the French daily newspaper. He is now the second shareholder behind Edouard de Rothschild (38%) after investing 5 million euros in the newspaper.

Caracciolo is not unknown in the media world: he is the president of the Expresso - La Repubblica group in Italy, a very successful and innovative group including the country's most important daily newspaper.

First conclusion: you can acquire 30% of a major French newspaper for less than 10 million US $! That's not good for the French ego!

Second conclusion: now in France, there's some sort of face-to-face between Italian investors at Libération and Spanish investors (Prisa - El Pais) present in Le Monde (16%). And Axel Springer, from Germany, will anounce in January the launching of a 50 cents daily newspaper.

France is the new European battlefield for the newspaper industry (at the moment, there are no rumors about English investors in Paris...)

Source: Primaonline.it and Le Figaro

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