We reported at the end of the year that Yell is moving in a new strategic direction. This week, the Yellow Pages publisher announced the appointment of Matt Anderson as its new chief strategy and business development officer. Anderson has previous experience as a partner in the consumer media and digital division of Booz & Co.

“Matt played an instrumental role while working at Booz on the development of Yell’s new business strategy and was closely involved in brokering relationships with new partners including Bazaarvoice and Netbiscuits as well as our acquisition of Znode,” said Yell CEO Mike Pocock in a statement.

Anderson will focus on building more global and strategic partnerships for Yell. In addition, he will work closely with Yell’s digital team to develop new products and solutions, and to incubate new businesses with global potential. He will be based in Yell’s Houston office, which is becoming a key location for the U.K.-based publisher. Pocock also hails from Houston.

During its investor relations call last month, Pocock said that Yell’s digital directory business is seeing declines due to the increase of players in the market. However, Yell has seen a continued interest among its clients in digital services, particularly websites and online search. Yell’s digital services offering saw an 11 percent growth in Q1, particularly in the U.S., which offset declines in Internet Yellow Pages.

Anderson’s presence is key to growing digital services. Previously, he developed robust strategies in industries experiencing structural uncertainty and change. He is also recognized as an expert speaker and media commentator on dynamic digital strategies. Since Pocock became CEO in 2010, Yell has seen significant senior leadership turnover. Most recently, Yellowbook CEO Joe Walsh and Yell Group online head Mark Canon have left the company.

The post Anderson Joins Yell to Boost Business Strategy And Digital Sales appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Heavily leveraged Yell Group has earned some breathing room from a deal with its lenders announced yesterday. Yell announced that it has reached terms with the “overwhelming majority of lenders” to increase the headroom on its debt. Without such concessions, Yell was at risk of violating the covenants, which require the company to stay within a determined debt to EBITDA ratio.

Yell’s current debt is roughly 2.6 billion GBP. For the 2011 financial year (ended March 31), Yell reported EBITDA of GBP514 million on revenues of GBP1,878 million, a 27 percent margin.

Yell is currently in the midst of a significant strategic transformation under the leadership of Mike Pocock, who took over as CEO on Jan. 1, 2011. The company is shifting from being largely print based to a multi-product, digital focus. Yell has projected it will generate 75 percent of its total revenues from digital sources by 2015.

In July, in advance of its new strategy announcement, Yell announced a flurry of deals, including one with Microsoft to resell its Office 365 cloud based solutions, and acquisitions, inlcuding Znode, an e-commerce software company. These deals demonstrated Yell’s commitment to a wide expansion of its product set.

In a statement, Yell CFO Tony Bates said, “We are pleased that, with this decision, lenders have strongly endorsed our new  strategy and have given the Group additional freedom to carry out its transformation program.”

The negotiations with the lenders apparently were not easy, and were extended on Dec. 7. And on Dec. 9, news reports suggested lenders were resisting the directory company’s request for loan amendments, which prompted Yell to make changes to its request.

Yell has seen significant senior leadership turnover under Pocock. Most recently, Yellowbook CEO Joe Walsh and Yell Group online head Mark Canon have left the company.

Yell’s shares rallied briefly on Monday after the deal was announced before declining to end the day down 12 percent. On Tuesday, Yell’s shares were trading at 5.16 pence. Over the past six months, Yell’s shares have traded in a range of 3.35 p at the low end on Nov. to a peak of 11.25 p on July 13. Yell’s historical high was more than 600 p back in 2007.

The post Yell Gets a Boost From Lender Deal appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Following on its announcement yesterday that it had acquired the U.S.-based e-commerce firm Znode, Yell Group has unveiled a new alliance with Microsoft to sell the software giant’s cloud-based services to its U.K. customers. The services Yell will offer will include Office 365, a cloud-based version of the popular suite of software programs.

The move appears to be part of Yell’s strategy to expand its product portfolio well beyond its branded print and online Yellow Pages products. Yell did see a modest boost in its stock price today following the announcement.

From today’s announcement:

According to a recent study by Booz & Company, the global digital services market for SMBs will be $235 billion in 2011 and is expected to grow by over 45% to $350 billion by 2015. Mike Pocock, Yell Group CEO, indicated that “small and medium sized businesses are looking for digital solutions to help them grow their businesses, transact with customers, and be more efficient. Our plans to form a global strategic alliance with Microsoft will help us launch our local, cloud-based marketplace, serving the growing needs of our customers by providing comprehensive digital advertising, productivity and business solutions at scale, bringing small and medium sized businesses ever closer to consumers and bringing reduced costs and competitive capabilities to SMBs that have, to date, only been available to larger enterprises.”

The post Yell Goes in Deep With Microsoft appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Yell announced today that it acquired Znode, an e-commere software development company in a deal valued at $19 million. Znode will be incorporated into Yell Group as part of its new consumer division, Yell Connect. Znode’s technology will serve as an e-commerce platform for the U.K.-based Yellow Pages publisher. In May, we summarized Yell Group’s fiscal results with its prediction that 75 percent of products will be digital by 2015. If so, this latest acquisition, which is scheduled to be complete later this month, is on target.

E-commerce is part of Yell’s new strategy to connect small businesses with consumers on a local level. A few of the digital services that Znode will provide include turnkey mobile apps that work across iPhone, iPad and Android based phones, single and multi-store e-commerce, and mobile technology that enables storefronts to be “pushed” to mobile phones and tablets in real time. In addition, the Znode e-commerce platform will help Yell automate its own transaction system with trackable performance to enhance efficiency and the customer experience.

Columbus, Ohio-based Znode is financed by North Coast Angel Fund. It is the first company under the fund’s umbrella to be sold. Last November, North Coast invested $200,000 into Znode in addition to the investments of several individual members of the fund.

In other recent news, Yell Group has named Richard Hanscott as the CEO of Yell UK. Hanscott comes to Yell with an IT and telecommunications background, with leadership stints at NEC, Orange and Hewlett-Packard.

The post Yell Acquires Znode for New E-Commerce Platform appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Speculation about a Yell takeover follows shortly after both PagesJaunes Groupe and Seat PG were compelled to deny reports of a merger.

Yell Group finished the first quarter of its 2011 financial year with total revenues of GBP 439.6 million, down 7.5 percent from a year earlier. At constant currency the decline was 9.9 percent. The company currently carries about GBP 3 billion in net debt, down substantially after a rights issue last year. Yell now generated about a quarter of its revenues online.

The post Speculation Surrounds Yell Shares Hike appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Here is a summary of recent, noteworthy developments in the global Yellow Pages space:

Following an industry trend, U.K.-based Yell has begun distribution of a truncated Yellow Pages directory in a three-pronged effort to save paper, reduce waste and meet changing user needs. Recent consumer research underscores a desire for a book smaller in dimension. The new directory, downsized by five centimeters in height and four in width, is expected to scale back Yell’s annual paper use by up to 5,000 tons, or 16 percent, from 2009.

Tupalo.com, a Europe-based “social Yellow Pages” site, has come stateside with a new property in Houston, Texas. Headquartered in Vienna, Austria, Tupalo has built online communities in several European nations, and is touting its U.S. product as “the ultimate Houston city guide.” European Directories, a publisher with operations in Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and Poland, is a strategic investor in Tupalo.com.

While Tupalo is expanding, Eniro has divested its joint-venture holding in Suomi24, a Finish social media network. Eniro received 5.6 million euros to sell back its 50 percent stake to Aller Media Oy, citing a desire to focus on its local search core. Eniro and Aller will continue their partnership in other formats.

Yellowbook Network received the top raking among IYP networks in comScore’s June 2010 list of the Top 50 U.S. Web Properties. YellowBook, a division of Yell Group, ranked 26th overall in monthly unique visitors with 36.4 million.  SuperPages.com Network was next among IYPs with 34.1 million, followed by AT&T Interactive Sites with 28.1 million.

The post Global Yellow Pages News Roundup appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Yell works with the digital agency TGB Digital to target ads to the most relevant audience using the ONE Media Manager system.

Below is a screen shot that shows an ad for a wedding dress shop that is served on all profiles whose relationship status is set to “engaged.”

The post Yell Launches Targeted Facebook Ads appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

BIA/Kelsey has released its Global Yellow Pages forecast, which calls for continued declines in print, offset largely by digital growth boosted by an expanding array of new products — ranging from websites to reputation management. We expect digital to account for 39 percent of revenue worldwide by 2014, but in some regions, non-traditional sources will be more than half of revenue even sooner.

The selling process is underway for Yellow Pages Group New Zealand. The company, which has a dominant competitive position in print and IYP in New Zealand, was purchased at the absolute peak of directory asset valued back in 2007, and investors have since seen more than US$1 billion in equity value disappear. Bruce Cotterill, the man brought in to shore up the business and restore value to the investors, will be aheadliner at DMS ’10, BIA/Kelsey’s upcoming event on the ongoing transformation of the directory business from traditional to multiproduct.

U.S. independent publisher Gold Pages has selected 7Mainstreet as its online Yellow Pages platform provider. Philadelphia-based 7Mainstreet has gained some traction in the independent space with its emphasis on integrating social media and e-commerce functionality into the platform.

More evidence of transformation can be found in Valley Yellow Pages‘ recent announcement that it has launched an Android app. Valley, once a business wedded more or less exclusively to print, is now focused on building products across the full spectrum of products — IYP, mobile, social and so on.

In the United Kingdom, Yell will be closing its regional sales offices and implementing an “activity-based” work model. What this means is Yell’s more than 700 traveling sales reps will not be tied to a regional office, but will work independently, and when office facilities are needed, will use an office space supplied by Regus as part of a partnership with Yell, which reports the new work model will save the company GBP 1.5 million annually.

The post Global Yellow Pages News Roundup appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Canon and Yell settled on acquiring the U.K. review site Trusted Places in a deal announced today.

Trusted Places is a U.K.-based start-up where consumers can share their opinions on merchants across the spectrum of local categories. The site has roughly 1 million monthly uniques and has been operating for about four years, competing with the likes of Qype and Yelp.

Canon told us yesterday that one of the key elements of the deal was Trusted Places’ intellectual property, its system for managing large volumes of reviews and, critically, stimulating review behavior.

The acquisition, completed a few weeks ago, will lead to the consolidation of Trusted Places into a new Yell site, which will operate as a review site, while the reviews will also be appended to merchant listings on Yell.com.

Canon said one of the key opportunities from the deal will be in encouraging Yell’s roughly 400,000 U.K. advertisers to stimulate review activity. Canon says U.K. merchants are increasingly aware of the “review ecosystem” and the impact it has on their visibility and reputation.

Canon says the Trusted Places leadership team will join Yell. He also noted that Yell’s integration of Trusted Places will eventually be exported to Yell’s U.S. and Spanish operations.

On a related front, Canon told us that Yell has opened a new Yell Labs facility in Central London that will eventually house up to 75 developers, programmers, digital sales specialists and others focused on developing and trialing new digital products.

Canon says a key side benefit of the new facility will be in recruiting top level new media talent to the company. Yell’s main offices are in Reading, a small city outside London with little cache. A Central London location has a much higher “cool” factor, not a small element in recruiting.

The Trusted Places announcement follows a recent substantial upgrade to the Yell.com Web site, which we posted on last week. The new version includes an elaborate 3-D mapping platform, a street view feature, a new video channel and the ability to “shortlist” favorite places and share the list with friends via e-mail, Facebook or Twitter.

The post Yell Acquires Trusted Places, Opens Lab appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Yell also announced its full-year 2010 earnings today. Some highlights include an 11.5 percent decline in group revenues (13.8 percent at constant currency), with revenues dropping 12.2 percent in the U.K. Print in the U.K. was down 18.8 percent. In the U.S. (Yellowbook) the print decline was 18.5 percent, which means Yellowbook’s print results are more or less in line with U.S. incumbents. Yellowbook’s overall decline was 14.4 percent. Online growth was 7.7 percent in the U.K., 18.2 percent in the U.S. and 19.2 percent in Spain, where print was off by a staggering 29.3 percent, and total revenues were down by 16.6 percent.

Yell CEO John Condron

Condron is an institution in the global Yellow Pages industry, having joined the company in 1980 and assuming the mantle of managing director of then Yellow Pages Group in 1994. Condron has led the company from its days as a division of British Telecom, through its divestiture from BT, international expansion into the United States, Spain and Latin America, and the more recent economic downturn and migration of the business from print to multiproduct. He and Davis also saw the company through a GBP 660 million capital raising last year that succeeded in easing Yell Group’s debt burden.

Davis joined Yell as CFO in 2000. He was previously with the Pearson Group. Davis has indicated no specific plans, other than to pursue other career opportunities.

The post Leadership Change in Store at Yell Group appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.