OTS - APA acquires stake in new Swiss news agency group KEYSTONE-SDA (part 1)
2017. October 30. 10:57
Vienna, 30 October 2017., (APA/OTS) - Austria Press Agency to bring
Keystone holdings and technology into restructured Swiss news
agency group
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internetcímen:
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Austria Press Agency and Schweizerische Depeschenagentur (SDA)
have significantly intensified their relationship at the
cooperative and corporate level: together with picture agency
Keystone, the Swiss agency is merging into the integrated
KEYSTONE-SDA Group. Already affiliated through the joint subsidiary
Keystone, at the beginning of the new year APA will therefore
become the Swiss news agency's biggest single shareholder with a 30
percent holding in the share capital.
APA and SDA, the respective leading news agencies in Austria
and Switzerland, have been equal shareholders in Keystone, the
biggest Swiss picture agency, for approximately ten years. The
merger now planned by SDA and Keystone will enable an integrated
multimedia supply of content from both agencies to Swiss media
customers and communicators in text, image, graphics and video.
Clemens Pig, CEO and a member of the management board of APA
Group, calls attention to the advantages of this new, in Europe so
far unique news agency merger: "This transaction is a genuine
win-win solution for all of the three agencies involved. The new
KEYSTONE-SDA Group will be able to optimally handle every editorial
requirement from a single source, particularly in the area of
multimedia and visual news production. I am very much looking
forward to cooperating with our Swiss colleagues and am firmly
convinced APA's investment will involve a solution which is geared
toward the future as well as the long-term invigoration of
independent, multimedia and technology-oriented news agencies in
both countries".
APA will provide its technological expertise in the development
and operation of IT services for KEYSTONE-SDA and its customers as
part of a long-term cooperation in the IT business. A wholly-owned
subsidiary of APA - Austria Press Agency, APA-IT is Austria's
leading IT information service provider in the fields of media
solutions, IT outsourcing and content management.
The planned transaction will be carried out with APA swapping
its current 50 percent stake in Keystone. "Originating from a
long-term cooperation in IT with KEYSTONE-SDA, this investment
represents for APA a milestone in the internationalisation of the
Austrian news agency. Both sides have already succeeded at
demonstrating their trustworthy and profitable collaboration in the
ownership of Keystone over the last ten years. We are delighted
about cooperating to carry out this cross-border investment and
technology project and wish a prosperous future to the newly
established Swiss news agency group together with APA", Hermann
Petz, chairman of the management board, and Alexander Wrabetz,
chairman of the supervisory board of APA - Austria Press Agency,
point out.
"With the merger of SDA and Keystone our intention is to offer
our customers high-quality multimedia information products
comprising text, image, infographics and video. This reflects the
changing needs of our customers and forms the basis for the
company's strategic development", says SDA CEO Markus Schwab.
SDA chairman of the board of directors Hans Heinrich Coninx
adds: "In an era of digitisation, combining competencies is an
important step for media enterprises to succeed in the long term.
The fact that APA is contributing its extensive technological
expertise to the new KEYSTONE-SDA Group as part of this merger
enables us to play an active role in these developments".
The transaction requires the approval of the respective
competition authorities and the general meetings of Keystone AG and
SDA AG and is to be retroactively implemented in the second quarter
of 2018 as of 1.1.2018.(be cont.)
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