Yellow Pages Make A Third US Acquisition - 6 January 2000
Yellow Pages, BT’s classified directory business, has further expanded its worldwide presence by purchasing American-based publishing giant Sprint Publishing & Advertising’s Midwest Operations. The company consists of 55 Yellow Pages directories with a 3.1 million circulation in suburban Chicago and Milwaukee. The transaction will cost around $45 million.The acquisition is to be made through Yellow Book, bought by Yellow Pages for £430 million in August 1999. This was swiftly followed by the $6 million purchase of Mississippi based Dixie Directories two months later.
Yellow Pages US operations now comprises over 360 directories with a circulation of 23 million and a total of 1800 employees in 15 states dominating the independent market east of the Mississippi.
"Acquisitions and partnerships will be key to Yellow Pages expansion in the US and elsewhere," says managing director John Condron "with this acquisition we enter another vibrant market and strengthen our competitive position in Chicago by adding high quality directories and leading talent in the directory business.
"Yellow Book will consolidate the many thousands of advertisers of both Yellow Page One in Chicago and Sprint’s Midwest operations to create another massive information base further enhancing the e-commerce capabilities of Yell, the Yellow Pages global platform.
"The great success which Yellow Book is already achieving combined with the success of our own award-winning portal Yell, gives us an excellent foundation for our ambitions in the US.
"While we have achieved a lot in a short space of time in terms of truly internationalising our business" he added, "we have a long way still to go. The US directories market alone is worth $13 billion and there are some 200 independent yellow pages publishers. BT has signalled its belief in our business and the future and we intend to continue to forge alliances and make acquisitions wherever the opportunity is appropriate."
