Egmont is a leading Nordic media group that is active in 30 countries with 6,600 employees. The company’s media portfolio includes Nordisk Film, TV 2 in Norway, cinemas, book publishers, educational publishers and PlayStation as well as a number of partly owned film companies.

Egmont operates under The Egmont Foundation, which annually donates a share of the profits from the media companies to institutes, organizations and projects for vulnerable children.

Egmont Publishing was created in November 2013 from Egmont Kids Media and Egmont Magazines. The unit produces over 700 weekly and monthly magazines, as well as children’s books and brand licensing. It also operates digital services and e-commerce.

Egmont Books consists of Norway's largest publisher, Cappelen Damm, and Denmark's second-largest publisher, Lindhardt og Ringhof. Egmont Books publishes fiction and nonfiction, children's books, audiobooks, e-books and educational materials. Egmont’s non-Scandinavian book publishing activities include the Turkish publisher Dogan Egmont and the Australian press Hardie Grant.

Analysis & Key Developments

Financial

Egmont’s total revenue for 2015 amounted to 1.58 billion EUR, the highest to date. Calculated in local currency, this corresponds to 5.2% growth. The growth was driven by digital business, cinema and payTV. In contrast the operating profit declined from 131 million EUR in 2014 to 97 million EUR in 2015.

The Egmont Publishing division continued to suffer revenue losses, with a 1% decrease from 2014 to 594 million EUR. Results were impacted by instability in Russia and Ukraine and a weak Norwegian currency coupled with a strong USD. On the other hand operating profit increased to 36 million EUR, based on solid performances in all main markets in the Nordic countries as well as in the UK, Germany and Poland.

Egmont Books closed fiscal 2015 with a decline. According to the amended International Financial Report Standards, the company is no longer allowed to include revenues from Cappelen Damm in the consolidated financial statements. Revenue from Egmont’s share of Cappelen Damm accounts for 126 million EU, a decrease of 10 million EUR from the past year. Revenue without Cappelen Damm totalled 44 million EUR in 2015.

Internal Organization

Egmont launched Saga Books in 2015, a new e-book and audiobook publishing unit for Scandinavian authors, which aims to digitize 15,000 titles over two years. The aim is to double the total number of e-books in Denmark. Saga Books additionally published more than 1,000 Danish e-books in Germany and Sweden.

Egmont Publishing has created two global divisions for its licensed content business across books and magazines: Global Licensing Management and Global Content Development. The new Global Licensing Management team will acquire global licenses and sell international rights for intellectual property. The Global Content Development division will develop internationally transferable content for books and magazines.

International

Egmont performed well in Germany, mainly due to the phenomenal success of Asterix issue no. 36, which supported magazines as well as books. The English-speaking region enjoyed a solid year, based on the continuing success of Minecraft. Ongoing political instability in Russia and Ukraine on the other hand continued to negatively impact international results.

Digital

In 2015 Egmont’s digital activities increased again, particularly in audiobooks and e-books due to the introduction of Saga Books. The company also saw sales growth from strong media content and digital businesses, as well as media channels with direct consumer contact.

Bestsellers

Lindhardt og Ringhof’s fiction list featured a wide variety of bestselling and literary titles, including a personal guide to Berlin and Vi elsker Berlin by Sissel Jo Gazan. A new edition of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird immediately topped the bestseller lists along with the sequel Go Set a Watchman. Other prominent fiction titles in 2015 included Michael Katz Krefeld’s thriller Sekten and Nadia Plesners’s Simple Living. Kamp og kunst fra en campingvogn, Butcher’s Crossing by John Williams, bestselling Norwegian author Karl Ove Knausgård’s Hjemme – ude, the French crime author Pierre Lemaitre with Camille and a collection of Siri Hustvedt’s essays also sold well.

The non-fiction division maintained its market lead in history, cookbooks, lifestyle and culture. The list was led by two cookbooks, Rigtige mænd and Den store bagedyst.

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