Yellow Pages Group acquires Canpages
Big news on the on- and offline directory space. The Montreal-based Yellow Pages Group (YPG) has acquired Vancouver's Canpages for $225 Million. Canpages, whose full name is Canadian Phone Directories Holdings, is being sold by an investor group led by private equity firm HM Capital Partners.
Clearly Canpages digital endeavours over the past couple years have made them an important piece to the YPG as CEO Marc Tellier said the purchase will help the YPG ramp up its digital business.
In addition to the Canpages acquisition, YPG announced the contribution of its US directory operations, YPG Directories, LLC, publisher of Your Community Phone Book, to Ziplocal, LP. Once the two entities merge, Ziplocal will reach over 300 markets across the United States.
YPG’s other recent acquisitions include online dining guide Restaurantica, which features listings (and reviews) of restaurants across North America, and Clear Sky Media, the owner of several Canadian shopping websites, including coupon aggregator RedFlagDeals and price comparison engine PriceCanada.com.
Headquartered in Vancouver, Canpages publishes 84 directories for a total circulation of approximately 8 Million copies and attracts more than 3.5 Million unique visitors to Canpages.ca each month. Canpages generates annualized revenues of $110 Million, with an online contribution of approximately 23%. The company employs about 700 people in Canada, of which more than 450 are sales consultants.
