Emap’s plastics industry magazines and events, including Plastics & Rubber Weekly, European Plastics News and PRW.com, have been acquired by US-based Crain Communications, which publishes Plastics News. The transaction, for an undisclosed amount, also includes the Plastics Design & Moulding exhibition, the Plastics Industry Awards and Emap’s portfolio of European plastics industry conferences.
Publishing and events director Andrew Beevers, will transfer with the business to Crain and head up a team of 18 people in Croydon, south of London, UK. The existing editorial and sales staff are being retained.
Beevers said: “Being part of Crain Communications not only gives us unrivalled editorial strength across the globe, it also opens up exciting opportunities to grow our conference business beyond Europe and expand our on-line business into new areas.”
Crain Communications vice president and Plastics News publisher, Tony Eagan, said: “This acquisition greatly extends the Plastics News brand into a key region where we had been previously underrepresented. Editorially it means the readers of PN, PRW and EPN will gain access to even better global coverage via an expanded network of experienced reporters and correspondents. Commercially, it offers our advertisers and customers the opportunity for combination packages that will help them deliver their message to plastics processors from Shanghai to Prague to Chicago”.
Crain Communications chairman, Keith Crain, said: “We are delighted about the opportunity this acquisition brings to deepen our coverage of this global market and we look forward to providing additional value to our readers and advertisers with this unmatched coverage and extension of our events.”
PN and PRW are the world’s only weekly plastics industry newspapers. PN, based in Akron, Ohio, has a circulation of more than 60,000 and is active globally, via its 11-year-old website, PlasticsNews.com, and in Asia, via its bilingual (Chinese and English) PN China eWeekly e-mail newsletter and website.
PN events include its Plastics Encounter regional US trade shows, an annual Executive Forum management conference, and various other business conferences. PN sister publication, Rubber & Plastics News, is a fortnightly newspaper that mostly covers the tyre and rubber products industries.
With the acquisition, Crain Communications has promoted Tony Eagan to group publisher responsible for overseeing PN, PRW and EPN. In addition to the Croydon office, Crain will maintain its existing office in central London, headquarters for European Rubber Journal, Urethanes Technology International and Business Insurance Europe.
Crain Communications is one of the largest privately-owned business publishers in the US with more than 30 trade, business and consumer magazines.
