The latest edition of ‘Press’ monthly mentions that Axel Springer Polska has been working on a new, large publishing project scheduled for next year. No further details were reported.
Our view: After successful launches of weekly, daily and tabloid news publications, ASP portfolio lacks only a free sheet and perhaps a monthly. The free press market Poland has been growing rapidly over past few years and currently 26% of all newspaper copies are given away free. However, they still account for very minor part of advertising spend, below 5%, as their publishers have not started monetizing on the free sheet respectable reach. The news would be negative for Agora, which owns the largest free title called ‘Metro”, (no link to Swedish one). But any potential loss of revenue would be minor, since ‘Metro’ revenues constituted only 4% of Agora press ads revenues, and 2% of total revenues in 1H06. We reiterate our Hold rating for ‘Agora’.