Dear shareholders and future shareholders,
For nearly ten years, Rentabiliweb has consistently remained on the French-speaking Internet landscape by inventing a new business: the monetisation and valorisation of audiences (online and offline). Today, it is one of the greatest successes of the French web, welcomed by our clients, partners and our shareholders as the Group’s valuation has more than doubled since we were listed on the stock market in December 2006 and as the net earnings per share has continued to grow.
Previous financial years have clearly confirmed our competitive position and validated our strategic positioning. What’s more, we are now in a position to take full advantage of a recovery in advertising investment on the Internet and increased household confidence.
Today, we have a three-pronged ambition:
- To maintain our leadership in the monetisation of audiences in online media (Internet and mobile), e-commerce, and offline media (press, TV and radio) which, more than ever, needs profitable solutions and tailor-made payment methods to increase the value of their high added-value content;
- To extend our platform of entertainment sites by focusing on populations and topics which are still under-developed or in which we identify significant growth potential, as demonstrated by our acquisition in 2010 of Santé Naturelle, subsidiary of the Yves Rocher group, the site www.clicbienetre.com, and the acquisition of dating and humour sites. Our expertise is recognised in the sectors of casual gaming, dating, personal and community services, well-being, humour, clairvoyance and many more. We aim to strengthen our publishing panel with further content in the future;
- Propose our expertise in monetisation and publishing outside of French-speaking Europe and benefit from the globalisation of our services, particularly in the markets of Southern and Eastern Europe as well as in the North American markets.
This aim was reinforced in 2010 by the success of our transfer to compartment C of Euronext, then to compartment B in February 2011 with, for the first time since it was listed, the capital being opened to foreign funds, particularly from the UK and USA. On this occasion I wanted to significantly increase the liquidity of the stock and its free float, increasing it from 12% to nearly 33% and, for the first time since the creation of the Group, offer Rentabiliweb shares to individual investors by reserving them part of the offer. On this occasion, our company therefore went public for the first time and I would like to thank each of you for trusting us, allowing us to support our growth and assuming the ambitions which we harbour. At this time, renowned shareholders joined us such as the PPR group and Pierre Bergé.
This ambition is also fuelled by the acquisition of the Edencast group in August 2010, which enables us to extend our publishing offering with content for the general public (humour and dating) and to strengthen one of the fundamental areas of expertise and profitability of the publishing business: controlling recruitment costs via paid referencing (purchase of traffic, e-mailing, CRM, data management). With the purchase of Vidalia in December 2010, Rentabiliweb strengthened its expertise as a telecoms operator and diversified into Business to Machine.
The beginning of the year 2011 was particularly dynamic as Rentabiliweb became the first pure Internet player to be definitively approved by the Banque de France and the French Prudential Supervisory Authority to offer European e-commerce providers solutions for payment by bank card and SEPA direct debits. Better still, it is the first French company to benefit from the European passport procedure enabling it to offer electronic payment solutions to German, British, Spanish and Luxembourgish e-commerce providers.
The Group benefited from its excellent dynamism in 2011, further expanding its panel of digital entertainment content with the 100% acquisition of SBSR and the possibility to roll out clairvoyance and astrology services on the French-speaking market. In line with what we announced, the Group is combining organic growth and targeted acquisitions to strengthen its offering and optimise its capacity to develop synergies between the audiences and the content of the portfolio. PureVoyance is a general public brand which benefits from the confidence of its most loyal clients and a very good image.
As you know, I am the first person concerned as majority shareholder, which testifies to the confidence I have in our business and in our future. This is also proof of the confidence I have in an ambitious group which is able to take strong commitments. And it is also proof of the confidence I hold in our teams which are efficient, innovative and particularly impressive in their command of the technologies of tomorrow. As a journalist of Les Echos recently put it, “The Rentabiliweb model deserves lingering over. It is both original and representative of the approach of a whole new generation of companies and entrepreneurs who know how to mix the three ingredients of success: vision, opportunism and discipline. ”
Thank you for your confidence in Rentabiliweb.
Jean-Baptiste Descroix-Vernier
Chairman and CEO of the Rentabiliweb Group