Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Recognizing Economic Value of Natural Assets

http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2013/04/18/call-to-action-on-recognizing-the-true-value-of-nature
More and more countries are putting natural assets like clean water, forests and other ecosystems into the center of their economic decision-making, a High-level Ministerial Dialogue on Natural Capital Accounting, on the eve of the World Bank-IMF Spring Meetings, heard today. 
Over 25 ministers and vice-ministers of finance, development and environment attended the Dialogue – which convened the `first-movers’ of Natural Capital Accounting (NCA). This is a group of more than 60 countries committed to supporting NCA to move beyond GDP as the main measure of an economy’s progress.

The Atlantic to Launch a Paid Online Product

The Atlantic Monthly Group will release some form of paid content product online in the coming weeks President Justin Smith said at a conference in New York last week. On a panel of publishers that included News Corp. and MLB, Smith said that the plan was to explore every kind of business model and monetization method for digital. “To see the ad model is going to win over the pay model is foolish,” he said. Adding to the chorus of support for paid content online was President and CEO of MLB Advanced Media Bob Bowman who said, any publication out there should have a paid content product."
Interestingly, the Atlantic has proven to be among the most successful of magazines to make the transition to digital. It’s digital revenue was up 33% in 2012 and a substantial part of the company’s third year of profitability.

Niche Publications Surviving

Even as print media churns through phases of collapse, revolution and rejuvenation, niche publications seem to pop up constantly. With tiny operations, they serve readers mad for things like home-brewed kale juice and exploring perspectives on contemporary art.
But this is all old hat for the Hudson Review, which has been blossoming with quarterly pages of poetry, fiction and criticism since 1948.

Bauer Suspends More Magazine

Bauer suspends More magazine as circulation drops below 100,000:
The magazine, printed by Polestar Bicester, has been running for 25 years but ran its last issue on Tuesday as its 22 staff entered a consultation period. The publisher will not decide whether to completely close the magazine until the consultation period has ended.

Folio: People On The Move

People On The Move | 4.24.13:
Timothy O'Brien has joined Bloomberg View as publisher. O'Brien was previously executive editor at The Huffington Post.
Frommer's has named Jason Cochran as its new editor-in-chief. Cochran joins the publication from AOL Travel where he was an executive editor.
Kasia Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg has been named as an executive producer at The Atlantic. She was previously an associate editor with the company.
The Association of Magazine Media (MPA) has promoted Ethan Grey to senior vice presient of digital strategy and initiatives. Grey was previously vice president of digital at MPA.
And more...

USPS Awards FedEx Air Cargo Network Contract

USPS Awards FedEx Air Cargo Network Contract: On April 23, 2013, the United States Postal Service awarded Federal Express Corporation (FedEx) a seven-year Air Cargo Network contract to provide domestic air transportation service for Priority and Express Mail. The current contract with FedEx ends in September 2013, and the new contract will begin in October 2013.

Postal Service Names VP Digital Solutions

The Postal Service Hires a Cop to Bust Down the Digital Door: How many entrenched old enterprises, confronted with their very mortality in the face of encroaching digital domination, would put one of their security chiefs in charge of innovation? That's exactly what the United State Postal Service did in appointing Deputy Chief Postal Inspector Randy Miskanic its new vice president of digital solutions.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Stora Enso Reports Q1, Plans Restructure

Stora Enso: "First quarter performance as expected - time to rethink structures": Stora Enso CEO Jouko Karvinen comments on first quarter 2013 results announced today:
“The first quarter of 2013 was, as expected, clearly characterised by weak markets and profitability for our Printing and Reading and Building and Living Business Areas. The combination of continuing structural decline in media-driven paper grades and economic weakness in Europe led to year-on-year declines of 9% in the Group’s operational EBITDA and 21% in operational EBIT despite the solid performance of the other two Business Areas. Seasonality also reduced the cash flow to an unsatisfactory level.
Stora Enso plans to launch a Group streamlining and structure simplification project intended to achieve annual fixed cost savings of EUR 200 million, including the earlier announced EUR 30 million in the Building and Living Business Area, with the full impact starting from the second quarter of 2014. The project is planned to include all Business Areas and corporate functions. In addition to reducing costs, the planned project would reduce interdependencies between businesses and enable a stronger focus on growth in value creating businesses.

Earth Day Request: Cut the Anti-paper Greenwashing!

by Two Sides U.S 
I’ve had it with my bank and all the other companies that are bashing paper products to promote electronic billing, statements and other e-services.
It may come as a surprise to you but 8.4 million Americans make a living in the print, paper and mail value chain that generates 1.3 trillion in revenues (EMA 2012 Job Study).  I bet you’re getting a lot of this money in your coffers.
About 10 million Americans own private forestland (US Forest Service) and many of them rely on the income from their properties to make a living (ex: lumber for construction and pulp used for papermaking – yes PAPER)...
I believe we are the ones saving forests for the long-term by managing them responsibly and making sure our society can benefit from forest products (like paper) that are highly renewable, highly recyclable and store carbon for their useful life.  These inherent environmental features make paper quite a sustainable product compared to all the other things that surround us, including electronics...
It’s time to gather your marketing team in a room and tell them to stop greenwashing the millions of people who earn a living from the print, paper, mail and forestry value chain.  Please focus your message on the true benefits of e-media: speed, convenience and maybe a few others.
Remember…we are your customers and most of us care about the environment just as much as you do.
Now it’s time for me to shut down my computer and cell phone for the day and go for a walk in the forest.  Happy Earth Day!

Wausau Brokaw Site Sold

The former Wausau Paper mill in Brokaw has been sold again.
Niagara Worldwide LLC and its subsidiary Brokaw Development said Monday it sold the 50-acre site for an undisclosed amount.
Don Jacobsmeyer, director of real estate for Niagara Worldwide, said Brokaw Holdings LLC, a subsidiary of B & B Metals, a metal scrap company located near Manitowoc owned by Bob Burrows, purchased the property.

Mohawk Names Names VP Sales

Mohawk, North America's largest privately-owned manufacturer of fine papers, envelopes and specialty substrates for commercial and digital printing, is pleased to announce three management promotions and two new hires.
Melissa Stevens has been promoted to Vice President, Sales. Previously, Director of Sales, Strategic Accounts and Sales Process Improvement, Stevens will continue to manage and develop Mohawk's sales force, driving new initiatives and developing new market opportunities. Stevens holds a BS in Business & Marketing from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and is currently pursuing her MBA. She joined Mohawk in 2004 as Specification Sales Representative in the New England Region.
Michelle A. Carpenter has been promoted to Vice President, Environmental and Energy Stewardship. Beth Reardon has been promoted to Regional Sales Manager, Midwest.

Resolute Thunder Bay Curtails Production as Union Votes "No"

Resolute to curtail Thunder Bay, ON, newsprint and pulp mill for two weeks starting Apr. 24, as it looks to contract out jobs.
CEP union rejects proposal from Resolute Forest Products to eliminate jobs through contracting out

Members of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada Local 39 have voted down a proposal from Resolute Forest Products to eliminate jobs through contracting out. The employer has identified 42 jobs across the mill which they have decided to contract out, including newsprint shipping, kraft shipping, garage maintenance and bark inventory and handling.
Resolute Forest Products were under CCAA protection until 2010, and the plan of arrangement to exit this protection contained a new collective agreement which reduced wages by 10%, required employees to pay the premium costs for their short term disability plan, and a reduction in vacation pay.

Haute Time Moves from Digital to Print

After Launching in Digital, Haute Time Rolls Out Print Mag:  Courting a digital audience before introducing a print product is becoming a much more common practice by content publishers, and a strategy that new enthusiast magazine Haute Time is betting on. The new 50,000-circ, biannual pub launched on Monday and is hoping to tap the power of social, celebrity and digital as a blueprint for success.
In April 2012 Haute Media Group introduced a group of niche sites focused on the luxury consumer demographic as a spin off to its Haute Living magazine; the media network includes sites HauteTime, HauteAuto, HauteResidence, HauteYatchs and HauteFashionDaily.

Advanstar Debuts Online Marketplace

Advanstar life sciences group debuts online marketplace: Media company Advanstar Communications' life sciences group has launched the Pharmaceutical Technology and BioPharm International Marketplace.

Home Depot Surveys SMBs on Green Products

The survey of more than 1,000 small business owners found that more than one-third of those surveyed (36 percent) would pay a higher initial cost for greener office products if they would generate long-term savings. Eighty-four percent say they would purchase the "green" office product over the comparable regular office product if the two were equally priced.

Ebay Fighting Online Tax Bill

EBay is calling on some 40 million of its users to fight a national legislation that would give states the power to collect sales tax from out-of-state online retailers. 
John Donahoe, eBay's CEO, sent the first of the emails out Sunday morning. The message, aimed at users and sellers in eBay's Marketplace, charges that the proposed legislation, known as the Marketplace Fairness Act, would burden small entrepreneurs. The Act, which the Senate may vote on this week, applies to businesses with more than $1 million in out-of-state revenues. Donahoe argues that the threshold should be $10 million in revenues or 50 or more employees, which would apply to only large online retailers, like Amazon. 
Amazon supports the bill, a spokesman told The Wall Street Journal. Reps from Amazon could not be reached for further comment. The National Retail Federation is also in favor of the measure.

Departures Launches Home + Design

Further evidence of the strength of luxury advertising in an otherwise slumping ad market, Departures this month is launching Home + Design, a one-off issue that will be delivered to half a million subscribers—otherwise known as American Express Platinum and Centurion cardholders—with their Culture Issue.

Condé Nast Expands Private Exchange Efforts

Condé Nast, having cracked open the door to programmatic buying two years ago, has swung it open a little more.
The traditional magazine powerhouse raised some eyebrows a couple years ago when it created a private ad market to sell its online ad inventory. In so doing, Condé Nast believed it could have it both ways: The company could take advantage of advertisers' growing demand for automated buying while putting a velvet rope around its content to keep out unseemly advertisers (and keep pricing palatable).
Now, it's decided to go a step further, making premium inventory on individual brands like VanityFair.com and GQ.com available along with the brand-nonspecific "Condé Nast inventory" already available.

Email Pioneer: USPS Essential

One of the people responsible for the proliferation of electronic mail, a man truly hailed as one of the “Fathers of the Internet,” told attendees at Postal Vision 2020 today that he considers the United State's Postal Service's brand of physical delivery as fundamental to a democratic society.

Semper Print Industry Survey Released

Semper Print Industry Survey Reports Largest Drop in Profitability in 12-Year History of Survey.:Semper International, the leading placement firm for skilled help in the graphic arts and printing industry, announces its print Industry Insight survey has seen a sharp decrease in profitability compared to last quarter.
Highlights:
51 percent of companies surveyed reported a profitable Q1. This represents a 28-point decrease over last quarter.
13 percent of companies expect sales to decrease through the remainder of Q2, 2013 while 47 percent hope for an increase.
The vast majority of respondents indicated that hiring levels will remain the same. Compared to 5 percent of companies in the previous quarter, 11 percent are planning to reduce their staffs.
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Quad/Graphics Equipping New Facility

Quad/Graphics presses deeper into New Berlin:
Quad/Graphics has begun installing equipment in what will be its second New Berlin facility, a 205,063-square-foot industrial building at 5600 S. Moorland Road. The facility, which will operate around the clock seven days a week, will open in late May. It will mainly serve as a mail sorting center, a commingling plant that will combine letter-size mail from multiple customers into one mail stream to take advantage of greater postal savings from presorting, said Claire Ho, Quad/Graphics spokeswoman. The sorting will help support the company's direct mail division.

'Do not track' Congressional Hearing Scheduled

'Do not track' congressional hearing set for April 24: Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) plans to hold a hearing on Wednesday, April 24, on the advertising industry's use of behavioral tracking data and the state of do not track standards.

Monday, April 22, 2013

North American Coated Paper Ships Fall, SC Up

The Pulp & Products Council has reported that North American coated mechanical paper shipments fell -9% in March as compared to the same month last year. Demand declined -5.9%, imports increased +5.3% and the operating rate was 86%. Coated woodfree paper shipments for the month were down -2.9%, demand decreased -7.3% and imports fell 23.7%. The operating rate was 84%. SC-A+/SC-A paper shipments rose +27.3%, demand was up +7.6% and imports fell -32.1%. SC-B/SNC+ paper shipments were up 4.4% and demand rose 1%. The Supercalendered operating rate was 91%.

North American P&W Paper Ships Down

North American printing and writing paper shipments declined 6.7% last month, bringing their total year-to-date reduction to 5.2%, according to the Pulp and Paper Product Council's March statistics.
Both uncoated freesheet and coated mechanical volumes posted 7.3% volume reductions, while uncoated mechanical volumes declined 2.2%.
Demand for the four main grades was down 6.7% overall in March, with uncoated freesheet falling 7.6% and uncoated mechanical down 4.8%.
Overall mill operating rates were 88%, five percentage points lower than in March last year.

IP in Talks to Spin Off Distribution Business

International Paper in talks to spin off distribution business:
International Paper Co is in talks with Bain Capital-backed Unisource Worldwide Inc to spin off and merge its distribution business with the privately held company as it focuses on its packaging business.
The unit, xpedx, distributes printing and packaging supplies in North America and accounted for about 22 percent of International Paper's $27.83 billion revenue last year. Xpedx's assets will be first divested into a newly formed corporation and International Paper will receive a cash dividend financed with debt raised by the new company. The newly formed corporation will then be spun off to International Paper shareholders and immediately thereafter merged with Unisource. The deal -- structured as a 'Reverse Morris Trust' transaction -- will be tax-free to International Paper and its shareholders, the company said. Terms of ownership in the merged company and the amount of dividend have not been decided.

NewCo to Acquire Wausau Paper Division

NewCo to acquire Wausau Paper division
A newly formed company tied to investment funding from KPS Capital Partners LP, a New York based private equity firm
Wausau Paper has signed a non-binding letter of intent to sell its specialty paper business to a NewCo, according to Recycling Today. Newco is a newly formed company tied to investment funding from KPS Capital Partners LP, a New York based private equity firm. KPS is said to have significant experience in the paper industry.
KPS also announces that it has signed a non-binding letter of intent to acquire an as yet undisclosed company that it will combine within NewCo with Wausau’s specialty paper business. Wausau has the option to have an initial ownership position in NewCo of up to 25 percent, with the opportunity to earn up to an additional 5 percent stake pending NewCo reaching certain performance thresholds.
As part of the transaction, NewCo will acquire the assets of Wausau Paper’s mills in Rhinelander and Mosinee, Wisconsin, for an initial cash purchase price of around $130 million.

Russia to Invest $13 Billion in Forest Industry

Russia will earmark 400 billion rubles ($13 billion) to finance priority projects in the country’s forestry industry to make the sector attractive for investment and address its long-term problems, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday.
“We must also make forestry attractive for investment. We plan to invest over 400 billion rubles in 118 projects in the sector which have received priority status,” Putin told a State Council meeting which discussed measures to increase the efficiency of the forest industry.
Russia’s forestry business has been in the doldrums for the past two decades, marred by poor governance, low investment potential and the growth of illegal felling and illegal timber sales.
Up to 20 percent of timber logging or about 35 million cubic meters of timber is illegal, with economic damage from illegal timber sales estimated at 13-30 billion rubles ($420-$970 million) annually, according to WWF Russia and World Bank data.

North American Newsprint Ships Fall

North American newsprint shipments took a double-digit dip in March, sliding 12.1% from year ago levels and bringing the volume decline in 2013 to 9.9%, according to the Pulp and Paper Products Council.
Overseas newsprint shipments fell 3.2% in March as a 23.2% fall in Latin American shipments offset a 43.9% increase in exports to non-Japan Asia, but first quarter volumes remained 8.2% above offshore exports in the first three months of 2012.
Demand for newsprint dropped 12.3% overall in March, with demand from newspapers down 11.7% from March last year and orders from commercial printers for other end uses lower by 14.8%.
Mills operated at 89% on a shipment-to-capacity basis, five percentage points lower than a year ago, and mill inventories destined for both domestic and overseas delivery increased on both a monthly and annual basis.

FSC, PEFC Speakers Featured at Mondi Event

The thematic scope of the event included: the future for forest products and the environment; the necessity for forestry certification and the new EU Timber Regulation; climate change and carbon neutrality; and going green as a good business practice. 
“Green business practices are a major concern for most businesses and organisations today. An environmental mindset requires not only a shift in the practices of companies but it also comes down to how we as individuals develop an environmental consciousness and adopt sustainable lifestyles.
The Green Event hosted guests from 13 countries from within the forestry, paper and printing industries as well as global companies and organisations for which green decision making is an integral part of their business strategy. In line with our Green Range slogan, to make the event as green as it gets the Green Event was CO2 neutral, including the participants’ transportation to and from the event,” said Peter Orisich CEO Mondi Uncoated Fine Paper, Europe and International.

Consumers Motivated to "Look Green"

No matter how you are (or aren’t) celebrating Earth Day on Monday, it’s likely that Americans are at least thinking about the health of the environment and considering ways they can be more responsible. However, new Mintel research on green consumer habits suggests that they might be motivated to go green to improve their image, as roughly one in five (19%) survey respondents say they believe it’s important for others to perceive them as being “green.”

Smithsonian Magazine Holds Conference

Smithsonian magazine is getting ready to launch The Future Is Here, a new conference focusing on science, technology, engineering and math innovations.

Hearst, Condé Nast Post Best Quarter in Five Years

Hearst Magazines Publishing Director Michael Clinton says beauty consumers appreciate physical magazines. 
Only newspapers have been given up for dead more often than magazines. But though their print cousins continue to lose advertising at a brisk clip, some magazine publishers are trumpeting a turnaround few could have foreseen in the dark days of 2008 and 2009, when nearly 1,000 titles shut down. 
Both Hearst Magazines and Condé Nast, boosted partly by a revival in fashion and beauty advertising, just marked their best first quarter in five years. Cosmopolitan, which has a new editor, a revamped Harper's Bazaar, and newcomer Food Network Magazine registered solid double-digit gains in advertising pages, putting Hearst up by 6.6% in ad pages overall. Bon Appetit, Details and GQ did the same for Condé Nast, which rose 3.3% versus a year ago.

Postmaster General Urges Congress to Pass Reforms

Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe was the featured luncheon speaker at the April 19th, 2013 National Press Club Newsmakers Luncheon in Washington, DC.  He urged Congress to pass legislation soon and outlined requirements for that legislation to avoid any long-term burden to U.S. taxpayers. The Postmaster General said it would take US$58B for Congress to prop up current postal service through 2017, including resolving debts.

Ad Age Hires Executive Editor

Advertising Age has hired Matthew Quinn as executive editor, to build out its coverage of the business of marketing and media. 
Mr. Quinn, who starts May 6, has been editor of The Wall Street Journal's CFO Journal, which covers news and trends important to chief financial officers and other corporate-finance executives. It is a return to Crain Communications for Mr. Quinn, who helped launch Financial Week in 2006 and eventually served as assistant managing editor. He has reported on commercial banking, investment banking and corporate cash management and worked at Inc. and CFO Zone.

Senate to Vote on Online Tax

The Senate is planning to vote on a bill as soon as Monday that would give states the authority to collect sales taxes on all Internet purchases, handing local governments as much as $11 billion per year in added revenue that they are legally owed — but that hasn’t been paid to them for years.

2012 Global Ad Spend Up 3.2%

Nielsen: Global Ad Spend Closes Out 2012 Up 3.2%: According to Nielsen’s quarterly Global AdView Pulse report (Q4 2012), global advertising spending rose 3.2% in 2012 with global advertising totaling USD 557 billion.
  Nielsen reports globally, advertisers gravitated towards television advertising in 2012 and pulled away from newspapers and magazines.
Television advertising (62.8%) commanded the majority of global ad spend. The next largest ad spend was newspapers (19.5%), followed by magazine ad spend (5.2%)