NEW YORK WARSAW–(BUSINESS WIRE)–BMP Media Holdings LLC has completed today the transaction to acquire
60% ownership in the Warsaw Stock Exchange listed Artnews S.A. (WSE:
ATN) for a total consideration of PLN 63.86 million (US$ 16.9 million).
As a result of this transaction, all of BMP Media Holdings art media
publications including Art in America, The Magazine Antiques
and Modern, as well as Artnews S.A. publications ARTnews, Art
Business and its Skate’s Art Market Research business unit,
will operate under the newly combined Artnews S.A.

“With the completion of this transaction we have created the world’s
largest and most influential print and digital publisher of art news,
critical reviews and information. Under the new Artnews S.A., we have
the most complete archive of art history and events of the past 100
years, and also offer the most comprehensive coverage of the classical,
modern, contemporary and decorative arts fields,” said Peter M. Brant,
owner of BMP Media Holdings LLC and now the majority controlling
shareholder of Artnews S.A. “The new Artnews S.A. will utilize its
combined forces and iconic media titles to expand digital content and
online news reporting, grow European market share and create new
business offerings uniquely targeted to art lovers around the world.”

Effective immediately, Dan Gardner, Heiner Rutt and Ed Sherrick will
join the Supervisory Board of Artnews S.A. Mr. Gardner is Co-Founder and
Executive Creative Director of Code Theory, Mr. Rutt is the former
Managing Director of Carlyle Germany and one of the founding members of
the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) who helped establish the company as
the leading consultancy in Germany and throughout Europe, and Ed
Sherrick was previously Senior Vice President and CFO of White Birch
Paper. The Board will be reduced from seven to six individuals to meet
requirements of Deutsche Boerse where the firm intends to list next year
in addition to its existing Warsaw listing.

Artnews S.A. will continue to be run by its current CEO, Izabela Depczyk
who led on the turnaround of ARTnews magazine acquired by what is
now Artnews S.A. from Milton Esterow in April of last year. The
turnaround includes achieving profitability in the U.S. six months ahead
of schedule, maintaining profitability of the print magazine ARTnews since
May 2015, repositioning Skate’s Art Market Research as the art business
intelligence unit of Artnews S.A. and transforming Artnews.com
as the growth leader in terms of digital audience and digital only
revenues among other art media peers.

“We have an extraordinary pool of talent in our combined organization,
total dominance in the U.S. print market in terms of paid and verified
circulation, global leadership in the art business intelligence field
through our Skate’s business unit and maintain strategic focus to make Artnews.com
the world’s largest digital art media business in terms of both audience
and revenue by integrating the journalistic content, data and research
from all of our media properties on a single Artnews.com platform,”
commented Izabela Depczyk, Chief Executive Officer of Artnews S.A.

The New Team

In addition to Ms. Depczyk as CEO, the newly combined Artnews S.A.
organization includes Szczepan Adamski who will continue in his role as
General Counsel and Mark Korb will remain as Chief Financial Officer.
Cynthia Zabel, previously the Publisher of Art in America, will
become head of sales for Artnews S.A., and Violeta Breheny, the former
head of ARTnews S.A.’s U.S. operations, will assume the role of
Director, Operations.

On the editorial front, Lindsay Pollock and Sarah Douglas will run
editorial for Artnews S.A. Ms. Pollock will continue as Editor in Chief
of Art in America and will build upon the strength of the last
five years in which newsstands sales grew 12 percent. Ms. Douglas will
focus on further expansion of Artnews.com
and ARTnews quarterly print issues. The Company’s entire online
content is to be consolidated under the Artnews.com
domain before the end of the year and the platform will be also used as
the key driver for European expansion. Dina Veprinsky, the Director of
Production at Artnews.com,
will continue in this capacity and will oversee the production process
for the merged company.

Elizabeth Pochoda will continue in her role as Editor of The Magazine
Antiques and Beth Dunlop will remain Editor of Modern. Art
in America, The Magazine Antiques and Modern will
remain in print under the current publication schedule (eleven, six and
four issues per year respectively), thus giving ARTnews and Art
in America subscribers up to 25 more print issues a year depending
on their subscription plan.

As the group’s digital media properties will be consolidated around Artnews.com
this will become the primary source of growth for the Company going
forward through introduction of various new digital products, databases
and services and rollout of Artnews.com
in-language sites across various European markets in 2016.

As the core element of the digital strategy, Artnews S.A. will allocate
further resources to expand the suite of products and services provided
by Skate’s, the art business intelligence unit of the company, and
expanding its premium subscription offer already fairly successful with
large corporate art industry customers.

About the New Artnews S.A.:

ARTNEWS S.A. is the world’s leading print and the fastest growing online
art media business with its media properties including print magazines Art
in America, ARTnews, The Magazine Antiques, Modern and
Art Business, digital properties www.artnews.com
and www.artbiznes.pl and
Skate’s Art Market Research business intelligence unit. ARTNEWS S.A. is
publicly listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE:ATN) and its
controlling shareholder is BMP Media Holdings LLC, owned by Peter M.
Brant. The company’s primary operations are located in New York.