German media company buys Habostorta for Ft 500 mln
German media company Georg von Holtzbrinck has purchased Habostorta, one of Hungary's biggest internet portals, for a reported Ft 500 million in cash, national daily Népszabadság reported on Wednesday.
Habostorta was set up in 2000 by gallery owner Tamás Kieselbach with three managers of brokerage Concorde. The dotcom bust followed just weeks after the portal was established, but the owners decided to continue operating the portal, creating a lean business model with a minimum number of staff and a maximum number of hits.
Habostorta expects revenue of Ft 150 million-Ft 200 million in 2006, 80% of it from advertising and the rest from text message services. The site now has about 200,000 visitors a month. Many of the pages produced by the portal's staff require little upkeep, such as dating website Randivonal, which now boasts half a million registered users.
Habostorta started looking for a buyer at the beginning of the summer, managing director Péter Weiler told the paper. It found Holtzbrinck with the assistance of Concorde. Weiler said Holtzbrinck will leave Habostorta's staff in place, but will expect profits in future. Holtzbrinck publishes Die Zeit, Handelsblatt and Tagesspiegel in Germany. In the US it publishes Nature and Scientific American.
ADVERTISEMENT
Households Make Net Withdrawals in April
Parl't Approves Amendments to Legislation on Judiciary
SUPPORT THE BUDAPEST BUSINESS JOURNAL
Producing journalism that is worthy of the name is a costly business. For 27 years, the publishers, editors and reporters of the Budapest Business Journal have striven to bring you business news that works, information that you can trust, that is factual, accurate and presented without fear or favor.
Newspaper organizations across the globe have struggled to find a business model that allows them to continue to excel, without compromising their ability to perform. Most recently, some have experimented with the idea of involving their most important stakeholders, their readers.
We would like to offer that same opportunity to our readers. We would like to invite you to help us deliver the quality business journalism you require. Hit our Support the BBJ button and you can choose the how much and how often you send us your contributions.
