Ok, hierbij het officiele persbericht.
New strategic priorities: Focus on Club Businesses
Involvement with BOL in Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Sweden will phase out
Guetersloh, September 3, 2002: As part of its strategic reprioritizing, DirectGroup Bertelsmann will focus exclusively on successfully steering its worldwide media club businesses. The group will withdraw from purely electronic media product retail. A variety of possible withdrawal scenarios are being looked into for the BOL businesses in Germany / Switzerland and the Netherlands and for the Bokus holdings in Sweden (formerly: BOL) with their roughly 140 employees. DirectGroup is holding on to its BOL joint venture in Italy and to its Chinese operations, as the Chinese market is of strategic importance. Both BOL businesses are already fully integrated into the respective local clubs. The supervisory board has received a proposed resolution from the executive board to this effect.
Businesses not affected by the changes include the U.S. e-commerce activities of CDNOW, which is fully integrated in the BMG MusicService music club, and the 36.2 percent holding in Barnes&Noble.com.
The international BOL ventures currently account for less than four percent of DirectGroup’s total turnover. After its dovetailing with local club operations synergetic effects overall lagged behind expectations. BOL is growing, but being a start-up venture it is not yet profitable. As a retail enterprise BOL will not be able to meet Bertelsmann’s return targets in the near future.
Says Ewald Walgenbach, DirectGroup CEO: “The teams headed by Arndt Roller in Germany and Switzerland, Daniel Ropers in the Netherlands, and Anders Ringnér in Sweden and their predecessors have done first-class entrepreneurial pioneer work in the past few years and deserve our admiration. BOL is now Europe’s undisputed No. 2 in media product e-commerce, and is in fact the market leader in the Netherlands. We are parting from BOL because of new strategic priorities within DirectGroup. We have set ourselves the goal of resolutely leading the division as a whole to profitability in its core markets and businesses, based on future-proof business models. Our management is devoting its energies to the turnaround of several club companies that are still operating at a loss, as well as to the ongoing improvement of our operative business. Profitable club ventures like in France, Spain or the US that managed to significantly improve results within the last year do prove the viability of the membership-based business model.“
The Internet, an integral part of the company’s club businesses, remains an important field of growth and innovation. The Web is now used for new member recruitment, customer loyalty, and as an additional promotion and sales channel. Today, club members order on all the various channels, i.e. catalogs, shops, phone and the Internet. 108 of our worldwide clubs now offer their members online-shops. Several clubs recruit up to 40 percent of their new members on the Web. The revenue share generated on the Internet lies between 4 and 25 percent depending on the club. In fiscal year 2000 / 01, the clubs generated some €75m in revenues on the Internet. Because advertising and distribution costs are particularly low on the Internet, DirectGroup’s goal is to expand its Internet services to customers.
About DirectGroup
DirectGroup Bertelsmann integrates Bertelsmann’s global media direct-to-customer businesses. Roughly 55 million customer-relationships and approx. 25 million Unique Visitors per month secure DirectGroup‘s position among the largest enterprises in media commerce. Cornerstone of this success are the Book Clubs with its 28 Mio. members in 19 countries incorporating strong brands like France Loisirs, Book-of-the-Month-Club, Der Club or Circulo de Lectores. Members have access to the Clubs’ product range via catalogue, internet or one of the 600 worldwide club shops. Add to this BeMusic the US music distributor constituted of the BMG MusicService club and the Internet shop CDNOW. A 36,2 percent stake in renowned online retailer barnesandnoble.com is also part of DirectGroup.
About BOL
BOL is DirectGroup’s international online media and entertainment
shop. Launched in 1999 it currently operates in 6 countries (China, Germany, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden and Italy). A single BOL media shop offers up to 900,000 books, 300,000 music-cds and a wide variety of videos, DVDs and computer games. With its 2,5 million customers it will generated revenues of nearly € 100 million in fiscal year 2000/01.
Je ziet dus dat het wel even wat anders is dan het korte berichtje op RTL.
Het bedrijf gaat dus verkocht worden, itt gisteren zou dit eigenlijk pas over een paar maanden bekend zijn wat de beslissing van de Direct Group zou zijn.
Bol gaat dan dus verkocht worden ipv sluiten zoals op teletext beweerd wordt.
Dit proces neemt zeker nog weken tot maanden in beslag.
Hiermee bedoel ik dus Bol.com NL
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Voor 0% gewijzigd door
Attilla op 03-09-2002 21:46
. Reden: Typo ]
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, post hier je reactie! 
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(heb hem op dit moment wel erg nodig 
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