Sales 2023: CAD 5.434 billion (€ 3.723 billion)

Overview

Quebecor is a Canadian media company that has grown from a local newspaper to
one of the major players in the Canadian media market.
Quebecor includes television and radio stations, a streaming service, publishers,
Newspapers, printing companies and telecommunications service providers.

An updated company profile will be published shortly.

General Information

Headquarters
612, Saint-Jacques Street
Montreal (Quebec)
H3C 4M8
Canada
Telephone: 001 514 380 1864 (Press Department)
Internet: http://www.quebecor.com/en/investors

Branches of trade: TV, radio, books, newspapers, magazines, news agencies, music, internet portals, distribution, mobile communications, printing, advertising
Legal form: Stock Company
Financial year: 01.01. – 31.12
Founding year: 1950

Economic base data (in million CAD)

	2023	2022	2021	2020	2019	2018
Revenue	5.434	4.532	4.554	4.318	4.294	4.181
Profit	650,5	596,7	588,4	617,4	658,3	441,8
share price (in CAD, year-end)	31,96	30,20	28,55	32,76	33,21	28,93
Employees	11.600	8.832	9.172	9.787	10.038	10.039

Executives and Directors

Management:

• Brian Mulroney, Chairman of the Board
• Pierre Dion, President & Chief Executive Officer
• Pierre Laurin, Vice Chairman of the Board and Lead Director
• Jean-Francois Pruneau, Senior Vice President & CFO
• Denis Sabourin, Vice President and Corporate Controller
• Marc M. Tremblay, Senior Vice President, Chief Legal Affairs and Public Affairs and Corporate Secretary 
• Chloé Poirier, Vice President & Treasurer
• Dominic Fortin, Assistant Secretary
• Dominic Poulin-Gouin, Assistant Secretary

Supervisory Board:

• Jean La Couture, Huis Clos Itée
• Sylvie Lalande, TVA Group
• Pierre Laurin, Quebecor
• A. Michel Lavigne
• Geneviève Marcon, GM Development
• Brian Mulroney, Norton Rose Canada, LLP
• Robert Paré, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP
• Normand Provost, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec

History and Profile

From local newspaper to media empire – within 50 years, Quebecor founder Pierre Péladeau (born in 1925 in Montreal) achieved an unprecedented triumph. At first, the young "Monsieur P.", as Péladeau was called when he was born in Montreal in 1925, was drawn to show business, until in 1950, with degrees in law and philosophy in his pocket, he tried his luck as a publisher. Péladeau bought the local paper Le Journal de Rosemont which had gone bankrupt and successfully revived it. In 1964 he founded the daily newspaper Le Journal de Montréal, today the largest daily newspaper in the city, and created the media company Quebecor Inc. a year later. Under this umbrella, the Quebec-wide daily newspaper Le Jounal de Québec , as well as weekly newspapers, magazines, books and a printing press. In the 1970s and 80s, the first English-language newspapers were added, and in 1974 the weekly newspaper Sunday Express (Montréal) and in 1983 the Winnipeg Sun.

In 1987, Péladeau bought the Donohue paper mill, a coup that gave the company full control over the entire printing process: Quebecor now brought together editorial departments, publishers, printers and paper suppliers under one roof. Further acquisitions of printing companies followed in the 1980s, making Quebecor the largest commercial printing company in Canada. The merger of Quebecor Printing and World Color Press in 1999 created an international printing giant. Péladeau remained with the company as CEO until his death in 1997. Two years later, the company achieved another major success: through the acquisition of Sun Media Corp., Quebecor became the second largest newspaper group in Canada - with eight dailies, over 200 regional and local newspapers and the most important tabloids in Quebec. This not only strengthened Quebecor's economic situation, but also ultimately made it the most important conservative media company in the region.

In October 2000, Quebecor opened a new chapter in its history: The company outbid a competitor’s offer Rogers and paid $5.4 billion for Quebec's largest cable service provider, Vidéotron, and its French-language TV broadcasting group TVA. As part of this acquisition, the company created the subsidiary Quebecor Media, which from then on operated together with the print division Quebecor World under the umbrella of Quebecor Inc. While Quebecor Media grew noticeably in the following years and through further acquisitions, such as the Vidéotron subsidiary Netgraphe (an Internet portal that, among other things, is Quebec's most important search engine toile.qc.ca Although Quebecor World (which houses the French company Vidéotron) was able to strengthen its market position, Quebecor World came under increasing pressure. Triggered by the purchase price for Vidéotron, which analysts considered to be completely excessive and damaging to business, and the upheaval brought about by digitization in the printing industry, Quebecor World's financial problems grew rapidly. The former world's largest commercial printing group was too late in implementing the necessary rationalization measures and failed to cut costs. Combined with the weak European business, this development ultimately led to a financial crisis that almost brought the printing company bankruptcy in 2008. The Quebec Superior Court rescued the company at the last minute, granting it insolvency protection and securing a financial injection from investors Credit Suisse and Morgen Stanley. In addition, the European part of the company was sold and a rigid restructuring plan was put in place. In 2009, the company changed its name to World Color Press and at the same time began a comprehensive restructuring that initiated a slow recovery. However, the efforts were not enough for the subsidiary to fully recover and so World Color Press was taken over by the US printing giant Quad/Graphics in July 2010.

management

After the death of the company founder Pierre Péladeau in 1997, his sons Erik and Pierre Karl took over the management of the company together as an interim solution. Two years later, Pierre Karl Péladeau was appointed President and CEO of the entire group. The founder's son, who has been with the company since 1985, played a key role in driving forward the acquisition of Sun Media Corporation and was involved in the purchase of the cable service provider Vidéotron. After the subsidiaries were split, Wes Lucas was appointed President and CEO of the Quebecor World/World Color Press division. Jaques Mallette followed in 2007, who in turn was replaced by Mark Angelson in 2009. Robert Dépatie has been the new head of Quebecor since 2013. He previously worked for Quebecor's subsidiary Videotron for twelve years.

Business segments

Quebecor Media Inc. operates primarily in French-speaking Quebec, but is also active in the rest of Canada. The group brings together a number of different media companies under its roof:

• Videotron LTD: Largest cable operator in Quebec, third largest in Canada. Only provider that offers cable television, Internet access and telephone connections.
• Osprey Media: One of the largest Canadian press publishers (daily and weekly newspapers, magazines)
• Sun Media Corporation: Canada's largest chain of tabloid and local newspapers
• MediaPages: Print and online directories
• TVA Publishing Inc.: Quebec's largest magazine publisher
• Canoe Inc.: bilingual Internet portal that bundles various services 
• Quebecor Media Book Group: Publishing group for French publications
• Archambault stores: large music store chain
• Select: Canada's largest independent CD and video retailer
• Le SuperClub Vidéotron Itée: largest video store chain in Quebec
• Nurun Inc.: internationally operating consulting firm

Current developments

In 2007, Quebecor Media expanded its newspaper business by acquiring Osprey Media, one of Canada's largest publishers, which owns 20 daily newspapers and 34 other newspapers. The television business is also growing steadily and has secured market leadership in the French-speaking Canadian market, not least thanks to the ratings hit 'Star Académie', the French-Canadian version of the ubiquitous casting format. In April 2011, Quebecor went on air with an English-language information channel called Sun TV, which is modeled on the American Fox News and also has the same content orientation. This caused a storm of indignation in the rival media and especially progressive blogs, because, according to critics, the conservative media empire could thereby significantly expand its power of opinion. There are also fears that a television station oriented towards the tabloid media of the Sun Group could influence Canadian politics. The future broadcaster and former government spokesman, Kory Teneycke, responded to the criticism: "The current news offering on Canadian television is limited, the news is complacent and politically correct. That is boring.(...) Our goal is to get people not We leave it to others to bore you to death.”

In early summer 2010, Quebecor Media withdrew from the Canadian Press Council after the company’s two major daily newspapers Le Journal de Montreal and Le Journal de Quebec had expressed dissatisfaction with the work of the independent organization. In particular, the Press Council's reprimands, which are issued in response to readers' comments, restrict the newspapers' journalistic freedom, according to a company spokesman. The withdrawal is a bitter setback for the Press Council, as the body now represents less than half of French-Canadian journalists.

In September 2010, Quebecor launched under the flag of Videotron a new wireless network, opening an unprecedented turf war with its main competitor, also based in Montreal Rogers Communications. Videotron's entry into the mobile market changes the market situation dramatically, as the company wants to build a network that covers large parts of the rural area. Since Videotron already has a large customer base in the Internet and TV sector in these areas, this could have an immense leverage effect. The 87,000 mobile phone customers who have so far used the network of Rogers Communications will switch to Videotron after the deal ends. Both providers are pursuing the strategy of selling Internet, television, landline telephony and mobile phone contracts from a single source to as many customers as possible.

But Quebecor is already facing headwinds from another direction: just days after the launch of the new network, the communications service provider Bell Canada Enterprises launched its new product Fibe TV, an internet-based television service that delivers a better quality signal than Videotron. Competitors also Bell and Telus Inc. announced corresponding plans.

Despite this, the company was able to increase its revenue in the second quarter of 2011, to now over 1.05 billion US dollars. CEO Pierre-Karl Péladeau is already thinking out loud about new strategies, such as exclusive content for the mobile phone division. Meanwhile, the Canadian Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is still discussing how to handle and regulate TV content on new platforms. Quebecor will therefore have to wait until the CRTC makes a final decision. At a CRTC hearing in June 2011, Péladeau made a first move and reiterated that cable providers need the exclusive right to remain competitive, because otherwise only large providers such as competitor Bell would be able to survive and market concentration would increase significantly.

Left

• List of newspapers published by Quebecor Media
• List of television stations owned by Quebecor Media
• press releases
• business areas of Quebecor Media
• Information about the individual subsidiaries

Press coverage:

• les affaires.com: Quebecor voudrait lancer un equivalent Canadian de Fox News (10.06.2010)

Author(s): Edda Humprecht