MARCO TRONCHETTI PROVERA, PRESIDENT, IL SOLE 24 ORE, ITALY
Only in Italy, could an industrial magnate also run a leading financial
newspaper. Marco Tronchetti Provera, the president of Il Sole 24 Ore -
Italy's answer to the Financial Times - is better known as the chairman
of tyre giant Pirelli. In mid-October, he once again made headlines in
his own paper by teaming up with Benetton to snatch control of Telecom
Italia.
The deal was a classic manoeuvre by Tronchetti Provera, who through
personal and professional connections has risen to become what Business
Week recently called 'The new king of Italy, Inc.' Born in 1948, he took
over the family energy firm in 1973. In 1978, he married Cecilia
Pirelli, the daughter of the Pirelli chairman Leopoldo. Although the
marriage ended in divorce, Tronchetti Provera's career there continued
unabated.
The official owner of Il Sole 24 Ore is Confindustria, an association of
Italian entrepreneurs. But as the vice-president of Confindustria and
the president of the newspaper itself, Tronchetti Provera is its obvious
figurehead. Along with the newspaper's director, Ernesto Auci, he has
pushed for innovation while maintaining a close focus on Italy's
business elite.
The newspaper has a circulation of 409,702 (Audipress), of which 43 per
cent is based on subscriptions - highly unusual in a country where
newsstand sales are the norm. As well as a glossy monthly magazine,
Ventiquattro, the group has a website and a business news radio station,
Radio 24. This April, it unveiled its most ambitious project to date -
the business TV channel 24TV.
No doubt Tronchetti Provera will continue to keep it in stories.
YVES DE CHAISEMARTIN, CEO, LE FIGARO, FRANCE
"Monsieur de Chaisemartin never gives interviews," the PR woman at the
right-wing French daily Le Figaro says. According to insiders, Yves de
Chaisemartin, Le Figaro's enigmatic CEO, is rarely seen around the
paper's offices, either. But that doesn't mean he's not interested - he
is said to regularly phone editorial suggesting subjects for
articles.
Right now, though, the 52-year-old former lawyer has bigger poissons to
fry. The paper's circulation of 350,000 is still some way short of the
400,000 target he set when he revamped the title in 1999. It is also
struggling with squeezed advertising revenues and an ageing
readership.
According to the last survey from EuroPQN, which monitors newspaper
sales in France, almost 50 per cent of its readers are aged over 60.
This has led media analysts to suggest that the six remaining members of
the Hersant family - the heirs of Le Figaro's legendary founder Robert
Hersant - might consider selling their shares. There's no shortage of
potential buyers. According to rival left-wing newspaper Liberation, the
French luxury brand titans Francois Pinault, of Pinault-Printemps-
Redoute, and Bernard Arnault, of LVMH, are waiting in the wings. "The
acquisition of a title as influential and prestigious as Le Figaro sets
them dreaming," Liberation commented.
To cap it all, Le Figaro's editor Jean de Belot is caught up in an
insider share-trading scandal surrounding the acquisition of retail
chain Carrefour.
De Belot offered his resignation but de Chaisemartin refused to accept
it. According to Liberation, he gave the editor his full support by
making a rare appearance in the newsroom.
HEINZ-WERNER NIENSTEDT, CEO, HANDELSBLATT, GERMANY
Handelsblatt is arguably the most European of German newspapers,
especially as it has a 49 per cent share in The Wall Street Journal
Europe (the WSJE's owner, Dow Jones, has a corresponding 22 per cent
share in the German title). And its charismatic CEO, Heinz-Werner
Nienstedt, is as close as the German financial media gets to a
celebrity.
Horizont, the German equivalent of Campaign, recently named him Media
Man of the Year.
Nienstedt, 52, joined the Holtzbrinck group - Handelsblatt's owner -
from Bertelsmann, where he worked in multimedia and, he says, "launched
a number of projects that were ten years ahead of their time". He took
charge of the financial daily in 1991 and has spent a decade modernising
and improving it. His arrival coincided with a stock market boom and
Germany's new "equity culture", so Nienstedt had a whole generation of
flash young entrepreneurs to target. Now, though, he's facing tougher
times.
"The business press has seen a 20 per cent cut in advertising," he
says.
"After ten years of growth, we've had to become leaner." This has meant
job losses "in the back offices", although he stresses: "We haven't had
to sack any reporters."
The content of the newspaper has been tweaked to reflect a lessening of
interest in stocks and shares and over the past few years it has
broadened its business coverage.
Handelsblatt's circulation is subscription-based, and remains steady at
160,000. Although Nienstedt believes the economy is unlikely to improve
"until the end of next year", he is confident the newspaper is in a
strong position, saying: "Even in this climate, we've seen a double
digit growth in international advertising."
RICHARD DESMOND, CHAIRMAN, EXPRESS NEWSPAPERS, UK
The UK newspaper scene had a new addition to its circle of owners, with
the arrival this time last year of Richard Desmond at the Express. In
November 2000 he bought the ailing Express Group from Lord Hollick's
United News and Media for £125 million.
Desmond's presence in the ranks of newspaper proprietors is
controversial.
Until this year he was better-known as a publisher and broadcaster of
soft porn through his publishing company Northern & Shell and through
the FantasyTV channel. The publishing company is best known for its
repertoire of 'top-shelf' titles, including Readers' Wives and Asian
Babes. It also publishes the highly successful rival to Hello! magazine
- OK!
Since arriving at the Express he has cut staff numbers from 1,050 to
nearer 600. He believes that the Express' chief rival the Daily Mail
overspends, even though its product has been hugely successful and
continues to gain readers at the same time as the Express loses
them.
The Express titles have also lost editors as a direct result of
Desmond's arrival. Both the editor of the Daily Express and the Sunday
Express have left. As well as getting rid of a number of senior staff,
Desmond's idea is to reduce the footsoldiers on the papers and introduce
more celebrity writers. As evidenced by his investment in OK! magazine,
he is a great fan of celebrity.
One of his first moves was to sell off Express Newspaper's internet
assets which were said to be costing between £7 million and £8 million a year to run. It remains to be seen whether he can breathe
life into the Express titles.
