Sonopress, Topac and DWS to strengthen Bertelsmann Arvato AG / Leading Manufacturer of Storage Media, Multimedia Printer, and Pioneer of Digital Rights Management on the Internet Move from BMG to Arvato
Gütersloh (ots)
STRONGER MARKET PRESENCE, SYNERGIES, AND EXPANDED SERVICE TO CUSTOMERS EXPECTED FOR SONOPRESS, TOPAC AND DIGITAL WORLD SERVICE
Bertelsmann AG's Sonopress will undergo an in-house move, from the Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) to the Arvato AG. The world's leading manufacturer of CDs and DVDs represents Bertelsmann's Storage Media division, together with the multimedia printer Topac, and the pioneer of digital rights management, Digital World Services (DWS).
The switch to Arvato AG reflects Bertelsmann's new structure with its three strategic fields of business - content, media services and direct-to-customer business. "The Sonopress companies are state-of-the-art, innovative media service providers, whose services and products go far beyond the mere production of music CDs. Their range of services and the printing operations make this group of companies a perfect match for the international service specialist Arvato," said Bertelsmann President & CEO Thomas Middelhoff in explanation of the decision, which was reached by mutual agreement with BMG's President & CEO Rolf Schmidt-Holtz and Arvato CEO Gunter Thielen. In times of rapidly changing competitive environments and technological upheaval, the new structure will help the companies to implement a stronger market presence, tap synergies, and provide expanded service to customers.
The group's companies in eleven countries specialize in the manufacture and distribution of CDs, CD-ROMs and DVDs, in multimedia prints, holograms and packaging, as well as in the increasingly important field of Digital Rights Management. More than three million digital data carriers, with music, videos, computer games or software, leave the group's production facilities each day. Sonopress is the world's second-largest CD manufacturer. Digital rights management by DWS currently offers all content-marketing industries secure solutions for the future of online distribution, e.g. for music file distribution that protects copyrights. The group's customers include not only the music majors, but also big names like Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Disney and IBM. At present, DWS is successfully developing Napster's security package.
"The Storage Media unit will strengthen Arvato in an important and promising area. This will benefit not only us, but our customers as well," noted Thielen. Arvato consists of market-leading printing operations with state-of-the-art production lines. It also includes the rapidly growing Services Group, which offers major international customers single-source logistics management - i.e. for the flow of information, of data and of goods. Custom-tailored print-on-demand solutions are also part of the full-service concept behind the Bertelsmann Arvato AG.
Uwe Swientek, head of Storage Media, is leaving the BMG Board to join the Arvato Board, where he will ensure the smooth and rapid integration of his division into the Arvato service chain. Storage Media is one of Bertelsmann's most successful fields of business, with annual turnover of nearly 600m Euro. Its reassignment to Arvato was already decided upon in outline last year, but was temporarily suspended during the merger negotiations between BMG and EMI.
Additional information on the above-mentioned companies is available on the Internet at http://www.bertelsmann.de, http://www.arvato.de, http://www.sonopress.de, http://www.topac.de and http://www.dwsco.com>.
For further question, please contact:
Susanne Erdl Media and Financial Relations Tel.: +49 / 52 41 / 80 - 21 76 susanne.erdl@bertelsmann.de
Bertelsmann AG Corporate Communications Telefon +49 / 52 41 / 80 - 24 66 Fax+49 / 52 41 / 80 - 66 13
Original content of: Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA, transmitted by news aktuell