Perfil folds, new pubs launch, Quebecor buys page 76

The publisher of the short-lived Buenos Aires daily Perfil has sold its magazine printing equipment to the commercial printing unit of Montreal-based Quebecor Inc. for $12.5 million in a deal that includes a contract, valued at $400 million, to print Editorial Perfil's magazines for 10 years.
Quebecor also publishes newspapers in Quebec and Ontario and makes newsprint in Canada and Texas. The Perfil assets, including the country's only rotogravure press, make Quebecor the biggest commercial printer in Canada and South America. Perfil's news and other magazines have a 40% market share in Argentina.
Late last spring, Argentine media magnate and Maria Moors Cabot prize winner Jorge Fontevecchia launched Perfil's eponymous all-color competitor with the capital city's two established dailies. A tabloid like its rivals, it was produced with a Kause computer-to-plate imager and a KBA Colora press (E&P, Aug. 8). The Colora, according to a spokesman, is not among assets bought by Quebecor. But by fall, Perfil was no more.
Since then, former competitor La Nacion reported, Fontevecchia has added a media and entertainment magazine, and a group in Rosario launched Ciudadano, a colorful four-section competitor to the port city's La Capital.

•(Editor & Publisher Web Site:http:www.mediainfo.com) [Caption]
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