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Stroer heading up for an IPO
Source: Business Week
March 4 (Bloomberg) — Stroer Group hired JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley to prepare an initial public offering by the German outdoor advertiser, two people familiar with the plans said.
The Cologne-based company may seek to sell shares on the Frankfurt stock exchange in the first half of the year, said one of the people, who declined to be identified because the preparations aren’t official.
Stroer, which calls itself Germany’s biggest outdoor advertiser, is boosting the country’s IPO pipeline this year after share sales from Hochtief AG’s concession unit and Scan Energy A/S were shelved in December. Kabel Deutschland GmbH, the nation’s largest cable operator, chemicals distributor Brenntag Holding GmbH and clothes retailer Tom Tailor Holding AG have all announced public offerings in the last two weeks.
“In terms of traditional media, outdoor advertising is definitely one of the easiest sells for an IPO,” said Conor O’Shea, a Paris-based analyst at Kepler Capital Markets. “Outdoor advertisers trade at a very high premium because there are less structural issues like declining viewership.”
Stroer spokesman Christian Ickstadt declined to comment on “such rumors.” The company has said in the past that an IPO is “one of many theoretical options” and there is “no time pressure” he said. Stroer is “very well positioned” and plans to continue its “growth course” and is therefore considering “all options,” he added.
European Expansion
The advertising company is considering an IPO as an option to finance expansion in Europe and the U.S., the Tagesspiegel newspaper reported on Feb. 15, citing an interview with Chief Executive Officer Udo Mueller.
Stroer reported 2008 sales of 493 million euros ($673 million) and employs about 1,800 people at 72 locations in Europe and Southeast Asia, according to its Web site. The company said it has 280,000 advertising spaces worldwide, including 230,000 in Germany, and owns exclusive marketing rights at 5,700 train stations of Deutsche Bahn AG.
Half of Stroer is owned by CEO Mueller and the other 50 percent by Dirk Stroer, the son of the founder, according to Ickstadt. New York-based Cerberus Capital Management LP also has an option to acquire a 15 percent stake in the company, he said.
Lehman Brothers
European IPOs have been slower to recover than in the U.S. after New York-based Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s collapse in September 2008 spurred a credit-market freeze. American offerings outpaced sales in western Europe by about four times last year, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
IPOs by Kabel Deutschland and Brenntag may be the “ice breakers” needed to start a wave of stock listings in the country this year, according to Andreas Bernstorff, Citigroup Inc.’s German head of equity capital markets.
“I could imagine eight to 10 IPOs, and it could be more,” Bernstorff said in a telephone interview on March 2. “If the first wave goes through and the market doesn’t run out of breath, then there could be even more in the second half.”
–Editors: Christiane Lenzner, Edward Evans
Tenders planned by spring for Montreal bus shelter prototypes
Montreal’s transit authority, Societe de transport de Montreal (STM), plans to call tenders by spring for the manufacture of prototypes for a new bus shelter following a recent design competition. The shelter incorporates various elements including an advertising poster frame, a bench and a solar power system. The winning concept was submitted by the consortium Leblanc + Turcotte + Spooner. Drawing inspiration from the STM’s newly minted brand signature, Collective Movement, the design proposal by Leblanc + Turcotte + Spooner offers a modular, scalable solution.
Featuring a self-supporting structure, the concept enables the manufacturing of base models, with the possibility of joining several units together to create variable-size configurations that can accommodate larger or smaller numbers of users.
The design features a communications column, which could house various components including dynamic digital displays and backlit advertising posters. An integrated solar power system will ensure lighting of shelters that cannot be connected to the power grid.
In a statement, the transit authority said the jury was especially impressed with the potential for integration and modular construction afforded by the winning team’s proposal.
Jury co-chairs Denise Vaillancourt, the agency’s executive director, planning, marketing and communications and architect Gilles Saucier, a partner in the firm Saucier + Perrotte, said the preliminary design offers “a comprehensive array of solutions” to the complex problems with which the competing designers were presented. “The concept incorporates current technologies, and meets the STM’s comfort and safety requirements.” The STM plans to have 400 new shelters built for installation across its network, gradually replacing the current models and responding to new needs.
The firm selected to manufacture the prototypes will be required to enlist the services of the winning design firm. In addition, the STM will conduct its own evaluation of the prototypes and survey its users to gauge their appreciation of the design. Montreal mayor Gerald Tremblay said the project is a “concrete illustration” of the city’s willingness to ensure that Montreal’s designers play a paramount role in shaping the city’s future. The competition was run by the Design Montreal office of the City of Montreal in conjunction with the STM.
The office’s mission is to implement a municipal action plan aimed at improving design throughout the city and positioning Montreal as a city of design.
A modular, more accessible shelter
Drawing inspiration from the STM’s newly minted brand signature, “Mouvement collectif,” the design proposal by Leblanc + Turcotte + Spooner offers a modular, scalable solution. Featuring a self – supporting structure, the concept enables the manufacturing of base models, with the possibility of joining several units together to create variable-size configurations that can accommodate larger or smaller numbers of users.
The design features a communications column, which could house various components including dynamic digital displays and backlit advertising posters. An integrated solar power system will ensure lighting of shelters that cannot be connected to the power grid.
The jury was especially impressed with the potential for integration and modular construction afforded by the winning team’s proposal. In a statement, jury co – chairs Denise Vaillancourt, Executive Director, Planning, Marketing and Communications, STM, and Gilles Saucier, architect and partner in the firm Saucier + Perrotte, noted: “This preliminary design offers a comprehensive array of solutions to the complex problems with which the competing designers were presented. The concept incorporates current technologies, and meets the STM’s comfort and safety requirements.”
Source: The Daily Commercial News Online
JCDecaux buys Titan (UK)
This article is a reprint from www.screens.tv.
JCDecaux has secured undisputed leadership of the British outdoor-advertising market by acquiring Titan Outdoor, leaving rivals CBS Outdoor and Clear Channel Outdoor trailing in its wake.
The French-owned company now controls nearly a third of the UK outdoor-advertising sector, after buying on undisclosed terms the assets – but not the liabilities – of Titan, which entered administrative receivership on Monday.
Those assets include digital six-sheets in malls and at major railway stations, as well as the larger Transvision screens at rail hubs and extensive non-digital inventory.
“There is a great potential fit with our existing roadside and airport advertising business and with strong positions in retail and rail advertising [Titan] is well placed for growth,” JCDecaux’s UK CEO Jeremy Male was quoted as saying. Titan’s railway-station advertising business alone is worth around £26m ($43m) annually, and one Titan executive reportedly claimed that sales across its estate were booming, up 30 percent on the same time last year. It is expected that JCDecaux will entirely rebrand the Titan business under its own name, but campaigns booked on Titan’s inventory will run as scheduled.
JCDecaux for its part has not rushed into digital out-of-home in the UK, although its local arm has long been interested in the medium, and the Titan takeover will significantly boost its inventory.
Although its extensive network at Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 5 is one of the best-known recent British installations and its giant Torch dual display on the M4 motorway in west London is one of the highest-profile roadside sites, the bulk of its business remains in non-digital outdoor media such as billboards and six-sheets. It also sells point-of-sale advertising at Britain’s biggest supermarket, Tesco, and in Tesco’s much smaller but more upmarket rival Waitrose.
Estimates by outdoor agency Kinetic show JCDecaux now holding 29 percent of the British market in terms of inventory owned, with CBS Outdoor and Clear Channel Outdoor roughly tying for second position at 23 percent and 22 percent respectively. On a global level, JCDecaux still takes second place to Clear Channel Outdoor.
In September, Titan Outdoor sold its roadside assets to Primesight in a deal valued at £6m ($10m).
Outdoor spending per capita
Solar-powered bus shelter made from recycled glass bottles
We’ve seen glass bottles being recycled to make houses and even temples. Eco-minded artist Aaron Scales has his hands on bottle recycling and has come up with a sustainable bus shelter that has been constructed from soft drink bottles.
Designed for a national design competition, the Bottlestop project makes use of recycled green bottles of Kentucky soft drink Ale-8-One to integrate art, architecture and advertising into a new public transit concept.
LED lighting is engineered to illuminate the clear bottles with solar energy collected by day, and a series of laser-etched bottles adorn the shelter with unique art. The “street furniture” bench rises from the ground plane to form differently sized seating options for diverse users, prevents sleeping, and continues outside of the shelter to house an integrated trash receptacle.