Distribution of company announcements to the professional platforms, finance portals and syndication of important corporate news to a wide variety of news aggregators and financial news systems.
Metro International (STO:MTROA) Publimetro Chile, a subsidiary of Metro International SA, the leading global newspaper, has purchased a 40% equity interest in Diario Pyme S.A., as well as an option to acquire the remaining 60%.
Diario Pyme S.A., based in Santiago, has developed a B2B online subscriber business offering a variety of services to small and medium size companies (SME's) as well as government agencies. The services offered include: internet strategy consultancy; a weekly business news bulletin; advising on website content development and preparation of tailored databases for direct mail businesses. Diario Pyme also arranges a number of seminars each year for its SME customers. The company, which currently has over 300K visits per month to its site, derives its revenues primarily from online advertising and sponsored content. The company was co-founded in 1999 by journalist Leonardo Meyer and lawyer Rodrigo Silva. Diario Pyme has grown its sales steadily since its launch and is expected to be profitable in 2008.
Publimetro will support Diario Pyme S.A. in all areas of its business but primarily with advertising sales.
Pablo Mazzei, Managing Director of Publimetro Chile and of Metro International's other interests in the Latin American Region, commented: 'SMEs in Chile employ 80% of the total national work force. Increasing our exposure to this vibrant and highly important business segment is therefore very attractive to Publimetro'.
Robert Patterson, Executive Vice President of Metro International, stated: 'Publimetro launched earlier in the year, in partnership with Diario Pyme, a monthly free magazine targeted at the SME community. This product has been a success and it was therefore a logical next step for us to look deepen our relationship with Diario Pyme. Publimetro Chile's advertising sales capabilities are expected to be of significant benefit to Diario Pyme. Publimetro Chile will start to immediately offer its existing SME advertisers print and online advertising packages. This transaction not only enables Publimetro Chile to enter the online B2B publishing business but it also serves to strengthen awareness of Publimetro amongst small and medium size companies, many of which are potential advertisers in our daily newspaper and our other printed products.'
