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Bauer Media boasts success of print as it reports 2015 turnover

Bauer Media has reported a 2015 sales turnover of EUR 2.316b, reportedly the company’s second-highest turnover in its history.

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The company’s magazine business was the greatest contributor to turnover, with magazine sales accounting for EUR 1.292b while the company’s digital division posted turnover of EUR 122m with year-on-year growth of 16.2%.

The results did not provide country by country breakdown, meaning no specific figures for the company’s Australian performance were available.

Publisher Yvonne Bauer said: “Our growth is based on innovative products and the constant nurturing of our brands. Print is the platform for our success. In addition we will continue to expands the pillars of radio and digital and make further strategic investments in all our business fields.”

Bauer Media Australia does not have a radio presence currently, however, there have been numerous reports that the German media giant has made repeated efforts to buy Lachlan Murdoch’s Nova Entertainment, operator of the Nova and Smooth FM networks.

In March, then Bauer Media interim CEO Andreas Schoo, who is also on the company’s management board alongside Yvonne Bauer, did not deny the company’s interest in the Australian radio market.

“We are a really active company with a lot of M&A activity around the world,” he said.

“Nova is, of course, an interesting target but there aren’t any discussions right now and we can discuss it when these targets are on the market.”

The fiscal update saw the company report that magazine sales outside Germany account for 65.6% of total turnover, up from 2014’s 64.9%.

Bauer Media also reported an increase in headcount with 11,5000 now working for the group, up 6.5% on the previous year.

Locally the company has seen a number of redundancies and departures, including the most recent redundancies at Bauer Xcel, the departure of digital boss Carl Hammerschmidt, the exit of Bauer’s head of custom Niall Murphy and the axing of Bauer Xcel’s general manager of operations Marcelo Silva.

The company has made some local appointments, hiring Jane Waterhouse as general manager for consumer at Bauer Xcel Media, appointing Fiorella Di Santo as sales director and, most recently, appointing Carat group business director, Warwick Taylor, to the new national role of director of media solutions.

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