Nordic Media Analysts Retriever and Infomedia Merge

Media analysis and communication insight specialist Retriever Group has merged with Danish company Infomedia Group. The firms say their aim is to add scale, leaving the combined business better equipped to invest in development and technology.

Retriever's media monitoring and analysis cover printed newspapers, online, TV, radio, podcasts and social media in one digital platform. The company has around EUR 40 million in revenue and was formed in 2002 from the merger of Nordiska Nyheter and Infolibis. Its c.200 employees are based in offices in Oslo, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Helsinki. Infomedia has many similarities - founded the same year, with the same number of staff and a similar sales figure (EUR 36m). It has offices in the same four cities plus Aarhus and Tallinn. Infomedia's growth has been partly by acquisition - it bought news crawler Opoint, in 2018, and M-Brain's Norwegian and Swedish media monitoring activities the following year. It also acquired a 23% stake in media monitoring tech specialist MediaCatch two years ago this week.

Following the merger on 28th June, a new holding company has been created, jointly held by the current owners of the two firms, Retriever's TT Nyhetsbyrån AB and the Norwegian news agency NTB; and Infomedia 's JP/Politikens Hus and Berlingske Media. Robert Söderling, Retriever Group CEO, leads the new company as Chief Exec while Infomedia CEO Martin Ove Rasmussen joins executive management team.

Söderling (pictured below) says the deal 'enables the investments required in the coming years to continue to offer the best products and services for customers', while Ove Rasmussen (pictured above) believes it to be 'a logical next step for Infomedia', commenting: 'We will be able to benefit from both companies' respective skills and resources and create better conditions for improving our services together'.

Web sites: www.retrievergroup.com and www.infomedia.org .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.