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La Opinion, El Diario-La Prensa form single Hispanic publisher
January 15, 2004
(The Associated Press)

The publishers of the Los Angeles Hispanic daily newspaper La Opinion and CPK Media, which publishes El Diario-La Prensa in New York, are combining to form a national Spanish-language publishing firm, the companies said Thursday.

The two privately held companies will form Impremedia LLC, which will continue to publish the newspapers separately. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The combined circulation of the two newspapers is 725,300, the companies said.

"Our vision is to create a national group of Latino newspapers that cover issues impacting our community nationally, regionally and locally on a hard-hitting and timely basis," Jose Ignacio Lozano, who will serve as vice chairman of the new company, said in a statement.

The Lozano family owns La Opinion. El Diario-La Prensa was bought in July 2003 by a group led by Los Angeles-based Clarity Partners for $19.9 million.

The new company will allow the papers to better approach national advertisers and give them a wider platform to reach a Hispanic population that is growing both in numbers and buying power.

La Opinion said it has repurchased the equity interest owned by the Tribune Co., ending its partnership with the company that publishes its own Spanish-language papers in New York and Chicago, as well as the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times.

The company said Monica Lozano will succeed her brother Jose as publisher and chief executive officer of La Opinion.

The new company has enough capital to begin buying existing weekly and daily newspapers across the country, Jose Ignacio Lozano said. Papers the company will buy or create will reflect the local communities and will not necessarily bear the La Opinion or El Diario-La Prensa brands.

"We are well capitalized to follow our dream and vision," Lozano said at a news conference.

Lozano said that in time, as investors seek profits and the company grows, the company could consider going public to raise capital.

The number of Hispanics in this country has grown nearly 60 percent in the past decade to 35.3 million, according to the 2000 census.

Over the next 20 years, that figure is expected to grow to 55 million. Their purchasing power could grow at three times the rate of the rest of the country, analysts say.

"I suspect these folks feel they don't have a choice but to band together to keep the Spanish language market as much to themselves as they can," newspaper analyst John Morton of Morton Research Inc. said. "They've got companies like Tribune chasing them."

Univision Communications Inc. last year acquired Hispanic Broadcasting Corp., a deal that gave it the top Spanish-language broadcast network, cable channel, record label, Internet site and radio network as well as the largest group of television and radio stations.

General Electric's NBC network acquired Univision's chief rival, Telemundo, in 2001.

Lozano said that while Impremedia may look to form alliances and share resources with Spanish language broadcasters, it has no plans to seek mergers with them.

"We're newspaper people," he said.

LOAD-DATE: January 15, 2004

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