Média-Participations

Média-Participations

Founded	1986
Founder	Rémy Montagne
Key people	Vincent Montagne (Chairman) Claude de Saint Vincent (Chief Executive Officer)
Publication types	Comics, DVDs, Magazines
Imprints	Anuman, Dupuis, Dargaud, Le Lombard, Fleurus
Revenue	€302 million (2007)
Number of employees	900 (2009)
Official website	media-participations.com

Média-Participations is a French media concern, controlled by a Belgian holding concern, specialized in Franco-Belgian comics. It has some forty publishers in its portfolio, including Dupuis, Dargaud, Le Lombard and Fleurus.

History

Média-Participations was created in 1986 by Rémy Montagne, a politician who had been a member of the French Parliament for three decades before starting in the publishing business. After his death in 1991, he was succeeded by his son Vincent. The company was first called Ampère and focused on the acquisition of a number of struggling Christian publishing houses like Fleurus. In 1986, the group changed its name to Média-Participations and focused more on Franco-Belgian comics, which started when they acquired Le Lombard in 1986 and Dargaud in 1988.

In 2004, Média-Participations acquired Dupuis after a bid on Editis failed. In 2008, Média-Participations renewed its bid on Editis, now for more than €1 billion.^[1]

The publisher is now the third largest publisher of France, and the major European Franco-Belgian comics publisher.^[2] Of the 32 million books published a year, 20 million are comics. Magazine sales also reach 30 million copies a year. The group publishes around 600 publications a year, some 13% of the total number of Franco-Belgian comics, but these represent almost a third of the sales of comics in France.^[3]

In 2009 it acquired a French computer software company, Anuman Interactive.

Current structure

Comics

Comics and manga are published by six different publishers: the general audience publishers of Franco-Belgian comics Dupuis, Dargaud and Le Lombard, the publisher of manga Kana, and the specialized publishers Lucky Comics (for Lucky Luke) and Blake et Mortimer.

Animation

• Citel Vidéo
• Kana Home Video
• Dargaud Media
• Dupuis Audiovisuel

Magazines

• Spirou, published by Dupuis
• Famille Chrétienne, published by Edifa
• different magazines by Rustica, including Système D

Books

• Editions Chronique for thematic publications
• Le Ballon for children's books
• Fleurus for a wide variety of books, including many children's books

Notes

1. ^ "Media-Participations makes over 1 bln eur bid for Wendel's Editis". Forbes. 28 March 2008. http://www.forbes.com/feeds/afx/2008/03/28/afx4825213.html. Retrieved 7 April 2009. 
2. ^ David, Christian (1 October 2004). "Vincent Montagne géant discret de l'édition" (in French). L'Expansion. http://www.lexpansion.com/economie/vincent-montagne-geant-discret-de-l-edition_22808.html. Retrieved 7 April 2009. 
3. ^ "Bilan 2009". ACBD. December 2009. http://www.acbd.fr/bilan/bilan-2009.html. Retrieved 6 January 2010. ^{[dead link]}

External links

• Homepage