12/01/2024, 14:47
The Gray brand has been associated with press sales for over 100 years (Photo: Piotr Molęcki/East News)
Gray Press has been selling in Poland for over 100 years. It has changed hands several times and is finally looking to get out of the press after being taken over by state-owned energy company Orléans.
The origins of this company date back to 1918, when the Polish Railway Bookstore Ruch was founded by Jakub Mortkowicz and Jan Gebetner. The innovative company launched its first kiosk in January 1919 at the Vienna railway station in Warsaw. Although the company was hit by the global financial crisis and Jakub Mortkowicz committed suicide in 1931 due to debts, it was the only newspaper distributor in interwar Poland.
State giant versus private companies
After the war, i.e. already in the Polish People's Republic, it was transformed into the state distribution company “Ruch”, which in 1973 became part of the workers' publishing cooperative “Prasa-Książka-Ruch”. It was a state monopoly on the publishing and printing market, supplying the coffers of the Polish United Workers' Party with dividends (the PZPR owned 95 percent of the shares).
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After the fall of the Polish People's Republic, according to the law, the RSW cooperative was liquidated and its assets were divided. The distribution of the press was taken over in 1991 by the state-owned Przedsiębiorstwo Kolportażowo-Handlowe Ruch, which was later transformed into the state treasury company Ruch SA. At the end of the last century, it owned 80 percent. Press distribution market – the company served 31.3 thousand sales points, half of which belonged to its own network, had almost 200 wholesalers.
In 1995, 14.5 thousand were employed. people. However, the state behemoth, run by party nominees, was losing market share to private companies like Colporter and Garmond and surviving on cash from real estate sales.
In 2006, more than 40 percent of Ruch SA's shares were listed on the stock exchange, and the proceeds from this partial privatization helped to restructure the company and computerize it. Four years later, the Treasury sold a majority stake to Eton Park Capital Management. This package was then taken over by the Lurena Investments fund, which also led to a forced purchase of the remaining shares and acquired 100 percent. Shares that took the company off the stock market in 2011. Six years later, Igor Chalupek, former vice-president of Pekao (1995-2003) and former president of PKN Orlen (2004-2007), became the main shareholder of Ruch SA.
The distributor was still taking a loss
At the end of 2018, the company owed millions in debt to publishers Some of them removed the titles from Ruch's sales points. A year later, the largest lenders agreed that 100 percent of Rukh's shares would be taken over by Alior Bank for a nominal zloty, and then sold to Orlen and PZU Group.
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“We are a serious investor, we are opening another chapter in the history of Gray”, assured Daniel Obatek, President of Orléans in 2019. However, the distributor still lost. In 2022, it amounted to PLN 86.1 million, with a revenue of PLN 799.6 million.
in 2023 The company has stopped accepting orders for newspaper subscriptions, and in January 2024 he announced that he would distribute the press at sales points only until the end of April. It is systematically reducing the number of kiosks – currently there are 550, at the end of 2022 there were 814, in 2021 – 1027, in 2020 – 1209, and in 2019 – 1333.
According to annual estimates of the Chamber of Press Publishers, in February 2023, Gray's share of the press distribution market was 13.7%, Colporter's share was 58.7%, Garmond Press's share was 20.4%, and other entities' share was 7.1%.
(GK, 12/01/2024)
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