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WPP boosts media owner portfolio with France’s LNEI

WPP is making yet another media investment, this time in Les Nouvelles Editions Indépendantes SAS (LNEI), a media group that investsin the French and international media sectors.

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Founded and controlled by Matthieu Pigasse, LNEI was launched in 2009 in Paris and has investments in leading French publishing titles in newspaper, magazine, radio, TV and online markets, including Le Monde, news magazine L’Obs, Les Inrocks, Telerama, Radio Nova, the French edition of the Huffington Post and VICE France. LNEI is also a founding partner of Mediawan, a special-purpose acquisition company focused on the traditional and digital media content and entertainment industries in Europe. This has recently completed a €250 million listing of its securities on Euronext. Reliance Group, one of India’s leading corporations, is also an investor in LNEI.

WPP is busily investing in continental Europe following the UK’s Brexit decision. Western continental Europe includes four of WPP’s top ten markets: Germany, France, Italy and Spain. In France, WPP companies, including associates, generate revenues of over $700 million and employ around 5,000 people.

But the investment in LNEI also shows WPP’s growing growing commitment to what it calls content. Other such investments include Woven, Refinery29, Mitú, All Def Digital, Truffle Pig, Fullscreen, Indigenous Media, Imagina, MRC, Say Media, Bruin Sports Capital, Courtside Ventures, The Weinstein Company and VICE.

As such WPP is a growing force as a media owner, albeit through minority investments.

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