Excelsior Publications

Excelsior Publications is a family press group French founded in 1913 and repurchased the June 27th 2003 by Emap France (today Mondadori France).

History

The group owes its name with the French daily newspaper the Excelsior , launched on November 16th, 1910 by Pierre Lafitte. It is the first newspaper which uses the photographic illustration as essential component of information. In Latin, excelsior means “always higher”.

See also: Excelsior (newspaper)

The daily newspaper will be repurchased in 1917 per Paul Dupuy, wire of the director of the Parisian Petit Jean Dupuy (1844-1919), which created for the occasion the company Excelsior Publications, editor of the magazine '' Science and the Life '' (launched in 1913) and other titles like Omnia and Illustrated Sunday . With died of Paul Dupuy in 1927, Excelsior Publications will be taken again by his wife, will be been born Helen Browne, before being reorganized in 1932. The daily newspaper Excelsior will cease appearing in June 1940.

After the war, the title emblematic of the group becomes the monthly magazine Science and the Life , which will be renamed Science and Vie , and which will give place to various variations ( Science and Micro Vie , Science and Vie Junior , Books of Science and Vie , etc). The group diversifies while launching specialized weekly magazines ( Option Finances ), monthly magazines ( Action Car Motor bike, Automobiles Traditional, Biba, 20 Years, max, Vital ) and guides ( Guide Beautiful-Air, camp-site and caravanning ).

In April 1997, Excelsior Publications yields to the group VNU its pole of data-processing press which included/understood in particular Science and Micro Vie and SVM Mac , then concentrating on Science and Vie and the titles female and related to the car.

During more than 80 years, Excelsior Publications remained, according to its leaders, “one of the rare magazine press groups to exclusively family capital which knew to ensure its growth while preserving its independence and by affirming its identity. ”

The company was directed by Paul Dupuy (born in 1938), grandson of the founder, at the time of his repurchase, in 2003, by the French subsidiary company of the British group Emap Plc.

During acquisition, Excelsior Publications counted 250 paid and a turnover of 63 million euros (2002).

Titles published by the group before its repurchase

  • financial Press:
    • Option Finances
    • the guides of Option Finances
  • scientific Presse of popularization:
    • Science and life
    • Them Except Series of Science & Life
    • Books of Science & Life
    • Science & Life Junior
    • Files Except Series of Science & Life Junior
    • Science & Life Discovered
  • Women's magazines
    • 20 Years
    • Biba
    • Depeche Mode , suspended publication in November 2001.
    • Mixed
    • Vital
  • male Press
    • Mixed max
    • max
  • Press of leisures:
    • Plays & Strategy (fine of publication in 1990)
    • Casus Belli (1990-1999, the title will reappear one year later out of the bosom of Excelsior)
    • Guide Beautiful-Air camp-site caravanning (four to five editions per annum)

The group also launched the magazines d" data processing general public SVM (Science & Micro Life) and SVM Mac, which was repurchased in 1997 by Dutch group VNU Publications.

Partnerships

  • Ediexcel, subsidiary of Excelsior and Edipresse:
  • Vital (women's magazines)
  • Mr. Magazine (male press, publication of 1998 to 2001);
  • Excelsior Filipacchi, subsidiary of Excelsior and Hachette Filipacchi Media (car magazines):
    • Automobile Traditional
    • F1 Magazine
    • Action Car Motor bike
    • Them Except Series of Car Motor bike

Adaptation abroad

  • Biba :
    • Turkey, in license agreement with Hurriyet;
    • Israel, in license agreement with Post Shop.
  • 20 Years :
    • Romania: in license agreement with Edipresse ACE Romania (subsidiary company of Edipresse and Axel Springer Verlag);
    • Italy: in license agreement with Gruppo Leading Futura.
  • Science & Life Junior
    • Poland ( Wiem! ): in license agreement with Edipresse Hammer;
    • Korea: in license agreement with Woongjin Food.

Other activities

Finance

  • Agence Option Finances (dffusion b-to-b-to-c/nearly 2 million readers on line)

Mark Option Finances, the Agency Option Finance becomes AOF, then takes its independence as AOF limited liability company, then AOF SA. It is then amalgamated with Option Finances, within the framework of Option Finances SA, following the repurchase of the Excelsior Group by EMAP which leads it to separate from its leading actvity dedicated to the financial world. Option Finance SA then becomes one of the rare French editors of financial press still independent.

Board games, roleplays

Plays Descartes, subsidiary of Excelsior Publications, was resold with Asmodée. It had two editors of plays:
  • Descartes Editor (plays sometimes marketed under the label Bluegames or Games2two),
  • Eurogames,
as well as a store chain of detail in Paris, Bordeaux and Lyon.

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