Revving up its online activities, Bertelsmann has announced several European online transactions involving its retailing, book club and online providers.
The company will launch a new book club and online venture with the Italian media firm Mondadori. It will be called Mondo Libri and consists of both firms' Italian book clubs. The new combined book club will have sales of about $120.1 million and will launch in early 1999. The venture's online presence will begin later that year.
Bertelsmann also announced that Books Online, its Internet bookselling unit, has signed agreements to be the exclusive bookseller for Lycos Europe, a popular European Internet search engine and Web portal; for AOL Bertelsmann Europe, the most popular Internet online provider; and for CompuServe, an online provider and subsidiary of AOL. AOL and CompuServe account for about 2.2 million online subscribers in Europe. The three-year deal is valued at $10 million and will link BOL.com to five country-specific Web sites. BOL and Lycos will also develop co-branded "book Web guides" in five languages. Bertelsmann is also an investor in Lycos in Europe.
