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Quartz, the commercial and technological information business launched by Atlantic Media, moves to a new home after Uzabase, a publicly-traded public company, acquired it as part of a new venture. a transaction worth $ 110 million.
a month. Quartz stated that it will not proceed with layoffs and that it will maintain its brand and existing editorial team. Co-president and chief editor Kevin Delaney and co-president and publisher Jay Lauf will become co-CEO of Quartz under the leadership of Uzabase and founder and CEO Yusuke Umeda.
The case is part of David Bradley, president and owner of Atlantic Media Project to transfer his family's property assets to the organization. Last year, he sold a majority stake in The Atlantic to Emerson Collective of Laurene Powell Jobs. Quartz explored acquisition options as early as 2015, but Bradley wrote in a memo to staff that he "thought it would take a few years before starting to search for a Quartz buyer." "
Launched in 2012, Quartz's vision has been to" the economist of the digital era "and he has found a niche for thoughtful storytelling. The company claims more than 20 million monthly readers, and she has found interesting ways to use distribution methods such as chatbots and newsletters. Indeed, Quartz reportedly earned a profit of $ 1 million in 2016 on a $ 30 million business turnover through its advertising activities.
The company announced today that this year's total sales are expected to increase by 25 to 35 percent. This is remarkable because it will affect the price that Uzabase will eventually pay. Quartz said in a statement that the deal varies between 75 and 110 million dollars "depending on the achievement of future financial and operational performance in 2018."
The acquisition surprised many with Uzabase barely a household name. In spite of that, however, he has a credible record as a society.
Uzabase became public on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 2016 and its current market capitalization is approximately $ 870 million. Its services include a business intelligence platform, a b2b marketing platform and, in the consumer space, an information application called NewsPicks.
This latter service is particularly interesting as part of the Quartz operation. per month. This gives NewsPicks nearly half of its revenue from paying users, which, according to the company, is up 80% a year. The service is the strongest in Japan (where it boasts more than 3.3 million registered users) but it was launched in the US last year in partnership with Dow Jones and is expected to grow rapidly over there.
It seems that businesses seem to want to work more closely on subscription-based content
"We will quickly develop paying products for the loyal public.The quartz has grown over the last six years, in particular as a result. relying on the success that NewsPicks has had with the community and the paid content, co-CEOs Delaney and Lauf wrote in a memo to the attention of staff
"While quality advertising will continue to represent The lion's share In the coming years, we anticipate that the biggest source of growth in the next chapter of Quartz will come from readers' incomes, "added the duo.
As to how the agreement was reached, Bradley and owner – recalled that Uzabase and Umeda founder and CEO met with Quartz about a potential partnership last year and that led to other discussions that became an acquisition. Umedia, Bradley said, wants to make Quartz "the world's leading brand of business in the world." (As a measure of his confidence, Bradley said that he will take 33-50% of his output in the Uzabase stock.)
In fact, the title of the Japanese company may be a key part of the transaction
While the price is down four percent following the announcement of the Quartz deal, it has increased significantly this year. It started the year at JPY 1,588 on Jan. 1 and last week closed at JPY 3,275, up more than double. This appreciation made the purchase of a Quartz more and more economical, especially with a significant share of the stock.
There is a precedent for the acquisition of major US technology companies by Japanese suitors. Back in 2015, The Nikkei bought the Financial Times for $ 1.3 billion in another unexpected M & A media, while more recently research service of the same name. job was purchased by the Japan Recruit for $ 1.2 billion. ].
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