Hicks Quick to Expand in Canada

Not long after completing its acquisition of Phone Directories’ Canadian operations, U.S. buyout firm Hicks Muse is pushing an aggressive expansion into bigger Canadian markets.

Next week, Canadian Phone Directories, the Hicks-backed company led by industry veteran Olivier Vincent, will begin a sales canvass for a Vancouver, BC, phone book. The book will overlay four Yellow Pages Group directories in the city. Vincent told us the distribution will be about 700,000 and rates will be about half those of the largest of the competing YPG books.

Also, CPD will re-launch the Calgary book to give it more distribution and sales muscle. Vincent told us the new Calgary book will distribute 600,000 copies, compared with 350,000 before.

The Calgary and Vancouver directories will both publish in the fourth quarter of this year.

These two developments make it clear that CPD plans to invest in making a more serious competitive challenge to YPG, which is by far the largest incumbent in Canada, than the previous Phone Directories operation was able to do.