The global directories company Hibu is apparently beginning to de-emphasize its corporate brand in favor of its old moniker Yell. This is according to an article today in the British newspaper The Evening Standard.

Hibu has been undergoing substantial change recently. Last year, lenders took control of the company, removed its CEO Mike Pocock, and sent much of Pocock’s leadership team packing as well. David Eckert replaced Pocock and has since focused on rebuilding the company by cutting costs and killing under-performing or low-margin products and services. Now, it appears the new leadership is focusing on the brand.

The Hibu brand is closely associated with Pocock’s tenure, during which the company’s fortunes went from bad to worse. It’s therefore no surprise that Hibu would begin to distance itself from the corporate brand and try to revive Yell, the brand that reigned during better times.

According to the Evening Standard article, Hibu employees, in the UK at least, are now expected to say they work for Yell, not Hibu. It’s worth noting that while Hibu has been pushed down from corporate to the consumer level, the brand Yell never entirely went away on the print side of the business.

Hibu operates print and digital directories, and sells digital services like website production and hosting, in the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain and Latin America.

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On the latest installment of BIA/Kelsey’s analyst roundtable series, analyst Mike Boland explained why he is even more bullish on mobile ad revenue with his latest forecast and Managing Editor Charles Laughlin assessed recent actions of Hibu’s new CEO aimed at cutting costs and rationalizing the product set.

Boland outlined his 2013-18 mobile advertising forecast, which was published last week for BIA/Kelsey clients. Boland also provided a detailed forecast summary in a blog post last week.

One of the notable elements of the new mobile forecast is the projected growth in the share of total mobile ad revenue generated by location-targeted mobile ad campaigns, roughly from 40 percent to 51 percent over the forecast period.

“What is driving that growth is a lot more adoption from national advertisers to localize their campaigns in various ways,” Boland said.

Notably, this movement of greater local targeting by national advertisers is the central them of BIA/Kelsey’s upcoming Leading in Local: The National Impact conference, May 7-9 in Atlanta.

Laughlin then examined the flurry of recent developments at the global directory company Hibu under its new CEO (since March) David Eckert.

Eckert has imposed some heavy cost cutting, with hundreds of jobs eliminated and production sent offshore. In addition, Hibu will shut down its U.S. hyperlocal magazine initiative, citing no clear path to profitability. Laughlin detailed these developments in a blog post last week.

On the roundtable, Laughlin summed up Hibu’s recent actions this way, “Actions [Eckert] has taken in the short time he has been there suggest that he is going to be very aggressive not only in cutting costs but in making tough decisions about which products they are going to keep and which products they are not going to keep.”

Check out this video to listen to the full roundtable discussion, recorded on April 11.

The post Analyst Roundtable: New Mobile Forecast Data & Tough Love from New Hibu CEO appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

On the latest installment of BIA/Kelsey’s analyst roundtable series, analyst Mike Boland explained why he is even more bullish on mobile ad revenue with his latest forecast and Managing Editor Charles Laughlin assessed recent actions of Hibu’s new CEO aimed at cutting costs and rationalizing the product set.

Boland outlined his 2013-18 mobile advertising forecast, which was published last week for BIA/Kelsey clients. Boland also provided a detailed forecast summary in a blog post last week.

One of the notable elements of the new mobile forecast is the projected growth in the share of total mobile ad revenue generated by location-targeted mobile ad campaigns, roughly from 40 percent to 51 percent over the forecast period.

“What is driving that growth is a lot more adoption from national advertisers to localize their campaigns in various ways,” Boland said.

Notably, this movement of greater local targeting by national advertisers is the central them of BIA/Kelsey’s upcoming Leading in Local: The National Impact conference, May 7-9 in Atlanta.

Laughlin then examined the flurry of recent developments at the global directory company Hibu under its new CEO (since March) David Eckert.

Eckert has imposed some heavy cost cutting, with hundreds of jobs eliminated and production sent offshore. In addition, Hibu will shut down its U.S. hyperlocal magazine initiative, citing no clear path to profitability. Laughlin detailed these developments in a blog post last week.

On the roundtable, Laughlin summed up Hibu’s recent actions this way, “Actions [Eckert] has taken in the short time he has been there suggest that he is going to be very aggressive not only in cutting costs but in making tough decisions about which products they are going to keep and which products they are not going to keep.”

Check out this video to listen to the full roundtable discussion, recorded on April 11.

The post Analyst Roundtable: New Mobile Forecast Data & Tough Love from New Hibu CEO appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

David Eckert hasn’t let any grass grow under his feet since taking the helm last month at the global search and directory company Hibu. Eckert, who had been serving as Hibu’s “operational” chief restructuring officer, was named CEO in March, replacing the departed Mike Pocock.

Hibu operates in the United Kingdom, Unites States, Spain and South America. Last year, Hibu went through a major restructuring that placed its UK operations under “administration.”

Soon after taking the reins, Eckert shook up his management team, leading to the departure of some senior executives, including Mark Payne and Bob Gregerson, two of Pocock’s top executives. Others who came in under Pocock have been retained or even given expanded roles. One example is Chief Digital Officer Matt Anderson, who remains in his job but with greater authority and a mandate to growth the companies online presence business.

And today, news reports revealed that Hibu will shut down its hyper-local print magazine project, which had grown to more than 600 titles in 20 states. Eckert cited no clear path to profitability as the reason for the shut down. The magazine had targeted high income households.

In addition, Hibu is working to reduce its production costs, eliminating jobs in Cedar Rapids, King of Prussia and other locations, and shifting much of its print and digital production to India and the Philippines.

These moves are fairly predictable. Eckert’s charge is to turn Hibu around, which will mean reducing costs and narrowing its focus on products that show promise in driving growth, in particular digital growth. Elevating Anderson’s role makes sense, given websites has been a relative bright spot for Hibu, which has suffered though steep revenue declines in its core print and IYP business over the past several years.

The post Big Changes Afoot Under New Hibu CEO appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Hibu will go through a leadership shake up early next year, an aftermath of the recent takeover of the company by lenders.

Today we learned that Hibu Chairman Bob Wigley will leave the board, to be replace by Alfred Mockett, who recently left as CEO of Dex One following that company’s merger with Super Media. Hibu CEO Mike Pocock is also on his way out the door.

Both departures are expected to take place once the current financial restructuring is completed, which is expected by sometime in early 2014. Pocock joined Hibu (then Yell Group) as CEO in November 2010, replacing the retiring John Condron.

Hibu has struggled to find stability through the combination of a large debt load and a sharply declining business.

According to BIA/Kelsey’s Global Yellow Pages report, Hibu is the third largest directory publisher in the world. The company ended its 2013 financial year with revenues of GBP 1.35 billion (roughly US$2.1 billion).

Before the lender takeover in July, Hibu carried GBP 2.3 billion in debt, most of which is expected to be converted into equity for the lenders.

Hibu CEO Mike Pocock has been in charge of the global search and directory company since November 2010.

In other developments, Hibu has appointed David Eckert as “operational” chief restructuring officer to replace outgoing “financial” CRO Simon Freakley, who has been engaged since December 2012 to help Hibu navigate its way out of its financial predicament.

Pocock has attempted to reform Hibu into a digital business, offering a range of media and platform services to SMBs. None of his efforts have thus far succeeded in offsetting the steep decline in the core print business, which has been declining at an accelerating rate throughout Hibu’s operations in the UK, Spain, the United States and Latin America.

Making matters worse is the fact that the company digital directories business is also in sharp decline. A bright spot has been digital services, which is growing robustly, but from a relatively small base.

Whoever takes over as permanent CEO will have to decide whether to follow through on Pocock’s strategy or shift gears. We imagine Mockett will likely play a key role in guiding the company’s strategy going forward. At Dex he focused on expanding the company’s digital product portfolio and moving aggressively to increase digital revenue.

One of the signature pieces of Mockett’s tenure at Dex was the Guaranteed Actions model, which bundled various lead sources, including print, and sold them as a bundle, guaranteeing the delivery of a predetermined number of “actions” in the form of calls, clicks, form completions, emails and appointments.

Mockett’s resume also includes a stint at British Telecom, Yell’s former owner. At one stage, Mockett oversaw the Yellow Pages, though he did not actively manage the business.

Pocock’s successor has not been named.

Outgoing Hibu Chair Bob Wigley. He will be replaced by former
Dex One CEO Alfred Mockett.

The post Leadership Shuffle Ahead at Hibu appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Lenders are taking control of the UK-based directory company Hibu and converting much of its GBP2.3 billion in debt into equity. This action wasn’t unexpected. A series of debt restructurings failed to buy Hibu enough runway to transform the business into a sustainable local digital media and services provider. The move will take Hibu off the public markets and essentially wipe out shareholders. The company’s shares were trading at 0.17 on Thursday.

Hibu has operations in the UK, United States, Spain and South America (Argentina, Chile and Peru). The business has struggled under the weight of its debt as revenue declines have accelerated, particularly in the UK and Spain. In 2010, Hibu brought in Mike Pocock as CEO to replace the retiring John  Condron. Pocock and his team built a strategy based on offering digital marketing and e-commerce services to SMBs and gaining scale through self-service. The strategy hasn’t taken hold fast enough to offset traditional revenue losses.

For the financial year ending March 31, 2013, Hibu saw its group revenue fall by 16 percent to GBP 1,347 million. Print revenue was down 22 percent and “digital directories” (online and mobile Yellow Pages) fell by 12 percent. The bright spot in the Hibu business is digital services, which is the key to the company’s hopes for a return to growth. Digital services grew by 34 percent, but at GBP174 million, this represents just 13 percent of total revenue. Digital services is essentially a catch all category for all non-Yellow branded products (websites, SEM, etc.).

Customer losses have been significant for Hibu year over year. For the 2013 financial year, the company lost 162,000 print advertisers, leaving it with 868,000. The digital directory customer base declined by 98,000, while digital services gained 114,000 customers. Another silver lining is that digital services customers have a higher average revenue per customer than digital directories, GBP437 vs. GBP338.

The big unanswered question is what happens to Hibu after the lender takeover (which is subject to the approval of 75 percent of the debt holders)? The company has 12,000 employees worldwide. Some efforts to trim cost seem likely, along with a review of the company’s overall strategy and local operations. At this stage it is unclear whether there will be any changes to the company leadership or any consideration given to divesting any of the individual operating units.

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