Ruch (company)

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A delivery point of the RUCH press wholesaler
A modern, walk-in RUCH press kiosk

The RUCH SA ( Spółka Akcyjna = Aktiengesellschaft) is a nationwide press distribution companies in Poland, which at the Warsaw Stock Exchange listed. RUCH takes on various functions: press wholesaling , retail , press export and subscription sales . The company's headquarters are in Warsaw . In addition to press products, RUCH also supplies selected daily consumer goods to around 26,000 sales outlets. This makes the former state-owned company one of the 50 largest companies in Poland.

history

The company was founded on December 17, 1918 by the Polish booksellers Jakub Mortkowicz and Jan Gebethner under the name Polskie Towarzystwo Księgarń Kolejowych RUCH Spółka z oo (German: Polish Society of Railway Station Bookstores RUCH GmbH). The following year the company's first kiosk was opened on a platform at Warsaw's Vienna train station . Just six months later, 60 sales outlets were supplied. In 1935 the company was the only large-scale distributor of press products in Poland and supplied around 700 sales outlets.

State company

In 1950, RUCH was forcibly merged with other press distribution service providers to form Państwowe Przedsiębiorstwo Kolportażu RUCH (German: State press sales company RUCH). Only the newly established sales monopoly had the right to wholesalers and retailers in Poland or to offer them by subscription. In 1955, under the holding company Centralny Zarząd Upowszechniania Prasy i Książki RUCH (German: Central Management for the Distribution of Press and Books RUCH), various subsidiaries - the Centrala Kolportażu Prasy i Wydawnictw RUCH (German: Headquarters of the Press and Publishing Sales RUCH), the Przedsiębiorstwo Wydawnictw Zagranicznych RUCH (German: Foreign Publishing Company RUCH) and the Przedsiębiorstwo Filatelistyczne RUCH (German: Postage Stamp Company RUCH ). In 1961 the Club Międzynarodowej Prasy i Książki (German: Club of the International Press and Books) was added.

cooperative

In 1969, the central holding company was renamed Zjednoczenie Upowszechniania Prasy i Książki RUCH (German: Union of Press and Book Distribution ). In 1971, after a merger of RUCH and Robotnicza Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza PRASA (German: Workers ' Cooperative of the PRASA publishers), the Robotnicza Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza Prasa-Książka-Ruch (German: Workers' cooperative of the Prasa-Książka-Ruch publishers).

State Treasury Company

On December 22, 1990, the Polish Sejm decided to liquidate the conglomerate. On April 29, 1991, the Polish Minister of Industry issued a decree according to which the press sales organization of the former RSW Prasa-Książka-Ruch was to be incorporated into the state treasury under the name Przedsiębiorstwo Kolportażowo-Handlowe RUCH (German: Press sales and trading company RUCH). The new company took over major assets from its predecessor and organized itself into 26 regional managements and 188 sub-units that were supposed to oversee national press sales. From April 1992 the company operated as RUCH SA

initial public offering

On December 22, 2006, the company went public. The new financing options enabled the company to gradually modernize its retail network and IT systems. In July 2009, 56.86% of the company's shares were held by the State Treasury. In August 2010, the ministry sold its block of shares to Lurene Investments BV , a subsidiary of the mutual fund Eton Park Capital Management . Mennica Polska and the NFI Jupiter investment fund also initially bid .

RUCH today

When many private press wholesalers emerged as a result of the political change in Poland in the 1990s, RUCH , which used to be a monopoly, quickly lost market shares. Above all, the Kielc company Kolporter SA became a strong competitor of RUCH. On the one hand, RUCH had a good starting position with the good sales locations of its kiosks, on the other hand, the takeover of thousands of employees of RSW Prasa-Książka-Ruch who were organized in unions put a strain on profitability and development opportunities. The attempt to sell the company to the French Hachette Distribution Services in the 1990s failed. A subsequent legal dispute hampered further privatization and thus modernization efforts for years. It was not until the second half of the 2000s that the company was able to consolidate itself in the context of increasing privatization and is now again the market leader in Polish press sales.

With deliveries to 26,000 sales outlets, RUCH SA has a market share of around 40%. In addition to around 6,000 self-operated and leased kiosks and accessible press salons , third-party operators and large retail chains such as Alma , POLOmarket or Chata Polska are also supplied. Around 4,000 press titles are listed, which around 8 million readers buy every day. In addition, RUCH has also been running cafes since 2009 and offering courier services. The iCoffee café chain and shops taken over by Mercer's and Tchibo in 2009 belong to the company.

References and comments

  1. ↑ according to Telekomunikacja Polska największą firmą medialną, TVP przed TVN at WirtualneMedia.pl on April 30, 2008, RUCH SA was in the 43th place of the largest companies in Poland in 2007 with a turnover of 4,410 million złoty (36 million zloty profit) Listing of the newspaper Rzeczpospolita (in Polish)
  2. ↑ Jakub Mortkowicz, also Jakób Mortkowicz (1876-1931) was a Polish bookseller and publisher
  3. ↑ according to Article Awans po latach in Rp.pl from August 20, 2009 (in Polish)
  4. ↑ the hedge fund Eton Park Capital Management was founded in November 2004 by former Goldman Sachs partner Eric Mindich
  5. ↑ according to Article Skarb Państwa zbył na rzecz Lurena Investments BV wszystkie posiadane akcje Ruchu at Bankier.pl from September 21, 2010 (in Polish)
  6. ↑ according to Article Ministerstwo Skarbu sprzeda Ruch at Rp.pl from August 18, 2010 (in Polish)
  7. ↑ private press wholesalers in the 1990s were - mostly only active regionally - e.g. B. Kolporter, Jard-Press, Bur-Press, Camelot, Fran-Press and Garmond
  8. ↑ according to Article Ruch moves to check losses ahead of IPO at Bankier.pl (original source : Warsaw Business Journal ) from May 29, 2006 (in English)
  9. ↑ according to Article What the Ruch's going on? in the Warsaw Business Journal of August 18, 2004 (in English)
  10. ↑ according to Report Polish press sales are diversifying  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.gtai.de   at Gtai.de from January 8, 2009

Web links

Commons : Ruch  - collection of images, videos and audio files