Helsinki Media, the magazine publishing sector of the SanomaWSOY Group, has signed an exclusive agreement to negotiate the purchase of Ekonomi och Teknik Förlag AB (E+T), Sweden's largest publisher of professional magazines and seventh-largest magazine publisher. E+T is owned on a 50/50 basis by Liber AB, a wholly owned subsidiary of Dutch publisher Wolters Kluwer, and IFFAB (Ingenjörsförlagets Förvaltnings AB), owned by the country's engineers associations.
E+T had net sales of SEK 280 million in 1999 and employs some 200 people. The company's main publications are the technical weekly, Ny Teknik, and the business weekly, Affärsvärlden. With a circulation of 150,000 copies, Ny Teknik is Sweden's only general news publication devoted to technology and is read by over 85% of engineers in Sweden. Affärsvärlden is the second-largest business weekly in Sweden and has a circulation of 24,000.
Medicine Today International AB (MTI), jointly owned by E+T and Bonnier AB, publishes the Swedish medical magazine Dagens Medicin, and, together with local publishers, owns parallel publications in Finland (Mediuutiset), Denmark, Norway, and Holland. Last year, E+T Förlag launched an Internet-based recruitment service, Jobfinder.
Helsinki Media is Finland's largest magazine publisher and the market leader in women's and family magazines, comics, and home computer and professional IT magazines. It is also a leading publisher of corporate publications and corporate directories. Helsinki Media currently publishes three magazines in Sweden. Net sales in the magazine publishing business in 2000 are projected to be in the order of FIM 900 million.
The parties have agreed that further information will be given only after agreement on the possible purchase has been reached.