Following Egmont’s aquisition of Bonnier’s book publishing division (covered by the Metabunker here), big decisions have been made – here’s a fresh statement from Egmont/Bonnier:
“In connection with the sale of Bonnier Books’ Danish publishing company Bonnier Forlagene to Egmont, the comics publication unit of the children’s publisher Carlsen will transfer to Semic International, owned by Bonnier. During their review of the sale, the competition authorities of the European Commission assessed that the group will achieve an over-dominant position on the Danish comics market as both Egmont Serieforlaget and Carlsen operate significant activities in this publishing sector. However, Carlsen’s current publications in the comics area will remain under the auspices of Bonnier. A Danish comics company, Bonnier Comics A/S, will be set up under the general management of Rickard Ekström and Måns Gahrton from the Swedish publishing house Semic International.
Bonnier Comics will be based in Copenhagen under the day-to-day management of Carsten Søndergaard, who has been affiliated with Carlsen’s editorial department for many years as the editor of most of the company’s cartoon publications. Bonnier will thus continue to publish such well-known series as Tintin, Garfield and Calvin & Hobbes in the Danish market, while maintaining the strong collaboration with its comics publishing partners in the Nordic countries and Germany. Under Egmont’s ownership, Carlsen will continue to publish the Danish series Valhalla and will also release new series and individual titles in the comics area. Owned to date by Bonnier, Carlsen will be amalgamated with the Egmont publisher Sesam, creating Denmark’s largest and broadest-ranging children’s publisher.
Bonnier Comics will provide a future platform for Semic’s continued focus on the Nordic comics market.”
The Metabunker will keep on following this matter …