Sanoma


Sanoma Corporation is a media group in the Nordic countries with operations in over 10 European countries, based in Helsinki, Finland. The group is also among the top five European magazine publishers and has a strong position in Finland as well as in Belgium, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, and until 2015 in Ukraine.

History

SanomaWSOY was formed in 1999 with the merger of Sanoma Corporation, WSOY and Helsinki Media Company. The group reverted to the name Sanoma Corporation in October 2008. On 5 March 2012, the group announced that it had sold R-kioski, a Finland-based Finnish–Baltic kiosk chain with 1,048 outlets, to Norway's Reitan Group for roughly 1 billion Norwegian krone. The group had been working on the purchase for a decade, but previous negotiations had stranded as Sanoma had demanded a merger where they owned 51 percent. The purchase brought the Reitan Group to 2,500 kiosk outlets, making it the second-largest kiosk group in Europe.

Profile

The group has an annual turnover of 2.761 billion euros and employed over 15,400 people on a full-time equivalent basis at the end of 2010.
Sanoma's stock is listed on the Helsinki Stock Exchange. Its biggest owners include Aatos Erkko and other members of the Erkko family. The newspaper Helsingin Sanomat that was founded in 1889 as Päivälehti, is one of the single most significant products of the group. Sanoma owns the broadcasting company Nelonen Media.

Divisions

The company consists of two divisions:
Previously, Sanoma had the Trade division which consisted of tasks including kiosk operations, press distribution, bookstores and entertainment.