Bonnier News, already the biggest news publisher in Sweden, has ambitions to transform the journalism business globally – starting with Ireland.
It has taken a minority stake in Ireland’s Business Post Group and has ambitions to replicate its home-grown success globally.
Without much room left to grow in its home country of Sweden, Bonnier sees the English-speaking news media market as a big opportunity and believes it has particular expertise in digital subscriptions and B2B publishing it can share.
In Sweden, Bonnier News owns three daily national newspapers – Dagens Nyheter, Expressen and the country’s only daily business title Dagens industri – as well as 47 paid-for daily local newspapers, 20 free papers, 30 magazines and 20 niche titles – including Dagens Media, Sweden’s equivalent of Press Gazette covering media and marketing. The organisation says this represents about half of the market, while it is also one of the largest magazine publishers in the country and has a minority ownership in another newspaper group on top.
Bonnier News chief executive Anders Eriksson told Press Gazette that in its home market, the company is “more or less the total of News UK, Reach and also the FT“.
It has about 2.2 million subscribers in Sweden, a country with a population of about 10.4 million, and reaches about six million people every day with its content.
As a result, Eriksson says the company “can hardly grow [any] more in Sweden. But the English-speaking market is bigger, so it offers new opportunities”.
In total Bonnier owns news and magazine brands in 11 countries, including Norway, Denmark, Germany, Finland and Poland, and says that across its markets it has a lot of experience in digital transformation and subscriptions.
Thomas Mattsson, senior adviser to Bonnier News and former editor-in-chief of its Expressen newspaper for more than ten years until 2019, told Press Gazette the company “aims to be an integral part of the transformation of the news business”.
Bonnier has been family-owned since it was founded in 1804 and is now in its sixth and seventh generation. This ownership, Mattsson said, gives the business a “very long-term perspective”.
Bonnier News had revenue of £630m in 2022 and EBITDA of £59.7m, Mattsson told Press Gazette. The business had a “healthy” 9% EBITDA margin in 2022, which was “down from 12% in 2021, but still good considering macroeconomics such as energy prices, interest rates and so on,” Mattsson said.
“Now we would like to grow further outside of Sweden, so we are reaching out and are open also to various partnerships.”
