The Le Monde group becomes the majority shareholder of the “Huffington Post”

In a press release published on Friday, December 17, 2021, the Huffington Post announces that the Le Monde group, which until now held 34% of the capital of Huff Post France, has become the majority shareholder. At the end of the discussions started this summer, the parties reached an agreement for the takeover by the Publishing Company of the World of the 51% of the shares held by the American news group Buzzfeed since 2020 in the pure player French.

“This buyout is the culmination of ten years of commitment by the World nearby Huffpost, when Buzzfeed wanted to redeploy its activities ”, underlined Louis Dreyfus, Chairman of the Management Board of the Le Monde group. “Co-founders of Huffington Post France alongside Ariana Huffington, we are now counting on her team to consolidate its business model while ensuring that we remain a laboratory for editorial innovation for our Group.”

3.2 million euros in turnover

Created in 2005 in the United States, the Huffington Post is one of the pioneers of pure players free online information. He arrived in France in 2012, with journalist Anne Sinclair at his helm. The site quickly established itself in the French media landscape. It “has become a major audience crossroads, particularly among a young audience, which is one of the Group’s development axes for the years to come. Its YouTube channel has nearly a million subscribers”, perhaps. read on the press release.

With around thirty journalists, the media posted a break-even net profit in 2020 for a turnover of 3.2 million euros. The editorial staff of the Huffington post has been headed since last June by Michaël Szadkowski, former editor-in-chief at World. Arnaud Aubron, also director of diversification of World, has recently assumed general management.