Sanoma Digital Oy has entered into an agreement to acquire majority holding of Suorakanava Oy. Established in 1987, Suorakanava Oy is a company specialising in construction communications and consumer marketing. It is the market leader in internet communications to builders and renovators. The company's main product is the Rakentaja.fi online service. Suorakanava's adjusted turnover for 2007 was approximately EUR 3 million.
The Rakentaja.fi service includes gardening portal Puutarha.net, and Sisustaja.com, a portal focusing on interior decoration. These websites have approximately 210,000 weekly visits by 130,000 unique visitors. Rakentaja.fi is Finland's largest home builder and renovator website when measured through turnover and the number of visitors. Rakentaja.fi is also direct marketing channel for construction material manufacturers and service providers.
Sanoma Digital acquires the shares from the company's three majority shareholders, Hannu Myöhänen, Pentti Teponoja and Aulis Ruotsalainen, and the company's minority shareholders. Myöhänen, Teponoja and Ruotsalainen will stay at Suorakanava and as minority shareholders. Sanoma Digital plans to acquire the entire share capital of the company within the next few years.
"Suorakanava will strengthen our business by adding online construction services in our product portfolio. Suorakanava has been able to offer consumers valuable services, and created a targeted direct marketing model which offers plenty of opportunities. We will develop it further together with direct marketing channel Sanoma Uniikki, online classified adds services Oikotie.fi and Keltainen Pörssi and online auction service Huuto.net, among others. Furthermore, there are plenty of co-operation opportunities with other Sanoma online services, Sanoma Magazines Finland's special magazines and Nelonen Media TV programmes," says Liisa Kotilainen President of Sanoma Digital .
"The construction sector has not yet utilised all the opportunities offered by the web. This acquisition further strengthens our position as the leading Finnish online construction service, and offers even better opportunities to create new interactive construction and renovation solutions. The acquisition enables us to speed up the development of our concept so that we will be able to offer builders better targeted and also customised services and products. This will further promote our customer-centred operations method, which is our core strength," says Hannu Myöhänen CEO of Suorakanava Oy.
Sanoma Digital Oy is a joint internet business focused company owned by Sanoma, Sanoma Magazines Finland and SWelcom which implements online operations with various companies within the SanomaWSOY Group.