Delivery enterprise Jakeluyhtiö Suomi to start operations

Alma Media Corporation     Press Release      16 March 2015 11:00 a.m. (EET)

DELIVERY ENTERPRISE JAKELUYHTIÖ SUOMI TO START OPERATIONS

The new company will be in charge of its founding companies’ delivery operation’s national sales and customer service. It will also develop the cooperation and the logistics of the companies’ delivery operations. The founding companies of Jakeluyhtiö Suomi are Alma Media's printing and distribution company Alma Manu Ltd, Sanoma Media Finland, Keskisuomalainen Oyj, Kaleva Oy, TS Group, Kaakon Viestintä Oy and Esan Kirjapaino Oy. Several other delivery companies owned by publishers have expressed their interest to join the venture during this year.

Marko Toivari, M.Sc. (Econ.), 45, was appointed the Managing Director of the new company. Toivari has diverse experience in management duties, particularly in the service industry, and he has worked as a management consultant for over eight years. Before his current position, he has worked as VP, Operations at Posti Group and as a consultant specialising in supply chain development, strategic logistics network design and operational model development at BearingPoint and Deloitte. He also took part in launching the operations of HIT Finland Oy, a subsidiary of the Sweden Post, focusing on in-night delivery in Finland at the beginning of the 2000s.

“Jakeluyhtiö Suomi will be a new significant player within the national delivery. The company also welcomes potential new partners. The venture enables the local early-morning delivery companies to join the national delivery market”, Toivari says.

The companies behind Jakeluyhtiö Suomi currently employ nearly 3,000 part-time deliverers. By expanding the number of delivery products, the companies will be able to offer more work to their deliverers.

“We are now defining our role in the delivery arena of Finland. At this point, we will not rule out any potential delivery products. Instead we are looking into all the possible products and services we could competitively deliver in our network” says Toivari.

The Finnish delivery market is undergoing a rapid transition as the volumes of printed media and letter mail are decreasing. Posti Group’s decision to increase the delivery prices of newspapers and magazines has hit hard the publishers’ finances. This has also caused some turmoil in the delivery market. As a consequence of the increases, some publishers have had to take over the early-morning deliveries themselves or find a new delivery partner.

For more information, please contact:

Marko Toivari, +358 (0)40 770 0328, marko.toivari@jakeluyhtio.fi

Alma Media in brief

Alma Media is a media company focusing on digital services and publishing. In addition to news services, the company’s products provide useful information related to lifestyle, career and business development. The services of Alma Media have expanded from Finland to the Nordic countries, the Baltics and Central Europe. In 2014, the company employed an average of 1,830 professionals (excluding deliverers), of whom approximately one quarter worked outside Finland. Alma Media’s revenue in 2014 totalled approximately EUR 295 million. Alma Media’s share is listed on NASDAQ OMX Helsinki. Read more at www.almamedia.com.