Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Catalyst Paper Announces Q3 Results

Reorganization of Catalyst Paper leads to net earnings of $655.7 million in Q3, 2012:
Catalyst Paper is reporting net income of $655.7 million in the third quarter of 2012 due to a significant one-time credit arising from reorganization gains and “fresh-start accounting” valuation adjustments.
The company emerged from creditor protection on September 13, 2012 with significant debt and cost-structure improvements.
In the quarter before, Catalyst Paper reported a net loss of $11.7 million.  Sales in the third quarter were essentially unchanged at $265.7 million.

NewPage Strengthens Partnership with ATFS

NewPage Corporation (NewPage) announced today that it has increased its supply-chain preference for pulpwood procured from certified woodland owners, including those certified to the American Tree Farm System (ATFS).
NewPage, the leading producer of printing and specialty papers in North America, is the largest buyer of pulpwood in the Great Lakes States. In 2011, 48 percent of the fiber (wood and pulp) purchased by NewPage came from certified sources.
According to Gordy Mouw, NewPage Certification and Resource manager, the procurement preference reflects the company's commitment to forest stewardship as well as its efforts to meet the growing demand of its customers seeking paper sourced from certified timberlands. In addition to ATFS, NewPage has established preferences for wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council® and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative®.
"Adding certified ATFS wood to our supply-chain addresses our customers' interests, our own commitment to sustainability, and helps family forest owners by expanding markets for their wood products," Mouw said. "This in turn helps them keep their forest land forested."

Price of Forest Carbon Credits Doubled

The price of forest carbon credits has doubled
The price of forest carbon credits doubled in 2011, leading to a record market value of $237 million according to the latest Ecosystem Marketplace survey of forest carbon markets, Leveraging the Landscape: State of the Forest Carbon Markets 2012.
The report examines a variety of strategies for injecting financial resources into projects that save or plant forests that capture carbon. Carbon offsets from these projects averaged $9.2 per tonne of sequestered carbon in 2011, up from $5.5 per tonne in 2010.

IP/Memphis Negotiations

International Paper is not pushing for a 30-year tax break to stay and expand its headquarters in Memphis, but rather additional 15-year tax breaks on its existing and planned properties and even on corporate aircraft, according local officials briefed by company representatives.
The Fortune 500 company is considering having a fourth office tower built next door and just east of its headquarters at 6400 Poplar, Shelby County Commissioner Mike Ritz said Tuesday.

The Future Of Food Packaging

The Future Of Food Packaging:
A recent survey by DuPont Packaging got me thinking about the future. The first part of the survey asked packaging professionals from across the world about the most important priorities affecting the industry – cost, sustainability, convenience, shelf impact, and so on. But what really caught my eye was the second part of the survey that asked the same professionals what they thought would be most important ten years from now, in 2022.
The answers were surprisingly different. While cost is king in 2012, sustainability looks to be the biggest concern by 2022. Today integrating merchandising strategies in the packaging process is essential, tomorrow trackability and anti-counterfeiting measures may be the next major challenge.

Flint Group Announces Ink Price Increase

Flint Group Announces Ink Price Increase: The highly volatile raw material markets in 2012 necessitate Flint Group to increase prices for all Coldset, Heatset, Publication Gravure, Sheetfed, Packaging and Narrow Web Inks and Coatings and Press Room Chemicals as of 1 st Jan 2013. In 2012, the global raw material markets have continued to be highly volatile. Despite the rather flat economic outlook, there are still many challenges for the supply chain.

Groupon Goods Launches Holiday & Toy Catalogs

Groupon (NAS: GRPN) (http://www.groupon.com) today announces free shipping and free returns from Groupon Goods, the company's goods channel that offers surprising and useful items at an unbelievable discount. In addition, Groupon Goods launches its first holiday catalog, featuring great deals on gifts for Him, Her, Them, You, Those Guys Over There and It, as well as Groupon Goods' toy catalog, stuffed to the brim with must-have toys for kids of all ages.

Esquire with Interactive Magazine

Esquire announced today that the December issue, on newsstands November 20, will be the first-ever completely interactive, shareable magazine. By using Netpage, the app for paper, readers can now digitally clip, save, and share every article, ad, and photo from the print edition of Esquire. Readers can also play exclusive videos and purchase items right from the page for an entirely new way to experience a magazine.

Penton Media Buys Farm Progress

Penton Media buys Farm Progress, boosts agricultural offerings: Penton Media today acquired Farm Progress, a holding company that includes 23 agricultural magazine titles, four expositions, digital and broadcast products as well as investment data.

Dwell/E-Retailer with Augmented Reality Offering

Dwell Partners With E-Retailer in Augmented Reality Offering: Modern design publisher Dwell Media joined the growing collection of print products to add augmented reality (AR) to its pages earlier this week, turning it's shopping magazine into a shoppable store.

October M&A Media Deals Up 4%

Report: M&A media deal volume up slightly in October: The number of mergers and acquisitions transactions in the marketing, media, technology and services industries totaled 310 in October, up 4% compared with the same time period in 2011, according to data released by investment bank Petsky Prunier. In the same time frame, the aggregate value of deals in this sector increased 8%, to about $6.9 billion.

Online Holiday Sales: Up 20% in Value, 8% Overall

ShopVisible, winner of the 2012 CODiE Award for Best Electronic Commerce Solution and the recent winner of the American Business Bronze Award for Most Innovative Technology Company, today announces data that gives retailers insights into the early picture of the 2012 holiday shopping season: The data, drawn from over one billion in sales and over 100 online retail sites, reveals: 1) Based on growth trends revealed from an analysis of all client site traffic over the past 6 years, ShopVisible projects that the trend shall continue, with order volumes increasing 8%-10% for most online retailers.

More Cookies from Publishers

In the online advertising world, the pro-cookie argument may hold that the ubiquitious tracking mechanism ensures a better site experience. But of course, for many Web publishers, the use of cookies has everything to do with monetization.
In a recent study, online privacy firm Truste found that publishers’ homepages average more than twice as many persistent third-party cookies as those of e-commerce sites.  Such third party cookies often allow these pubishers to know things about their visitors, such as whether they might in the market for a new smartphone based on their recent Web activity.

Bertelsmann Reports 9-Month Results

http://www.rttnews.com/2004491/bertelsmann-reports-rise-in-9-month-profit-on-higher-revenues-quick-facts.aspx?type=qf&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=sitemap 
Bertelsmann, the international media group, released the financial results for the nine-month period ended 30 September 2012, reporting a rise in Group profit for the period on higher revenues.
Group Profit fro the nine-month period ended 30 September 2012 increased to EUR 528 million from EUTR 377 million reported for the corresponding period last year, aided mainly by lower special items.

Record High Global Carbon Emmissions

Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels rose 2.5 percent to a record last year on surging pollution in China, Germany’s IWR research institude said.
Worldwide emissions rose 834 million metric tons to 33.99 billion tons, IWR said today on its website. China’s releases of the greenhouse gas climbed 6.5 percent, offsetting declines in the U.S., Russia and Germany, the Muenster-based institute said.

Q3 Retail & Consumer M&A Value Up 160%

Corporations spinning off businesses, private equity (PE) investment in retail, continued cross border activity and expansion into e-commerce drove retail & consumer merger & acquisition (M&A) activity in the third quarter of 2012, according to PwC’s US retail and consumer M&A insights Q3 2012 report released today.
For the three month period ending September 30, 2012, there were a total of 32 deals in the retail and consumer sector with values greater than $50 million, accounting for $19.8 billion in deal value, a 60 percent increase in volume and a 160 percent increase in value from the 20 deals worth $7.6 billion during the third quarter of 2011.

Direct Marketers: Big Data & Big Measurement

A new view of Big Data for direct marketers
Technically we now have access to a range of data management options that deliver scale and performance with standards-based hardware and open-source software. However, as IBM's recent study shows (“From Stretched to Strengthened”) CMOs still believe that they're relatively unprepared for the explosion of data and the accompanying ROI accountability. Throw in channel proliferation and we have potential for the types of false starts and failed ROI that Gartner identified with the emergence of CRM.
As a resolution to this challenge, direct marketers should adopt, in conjunction with Big Data, the concept of Big Measurement, which involves applying the right data with the right measurement metrics, and implementing a systematic model that manages both.