Jocelyn Newmarch
15 October 2008
Johannesburg — LEXISNEXIS has managed to successfully make money from the internet, while most media houses are still feeling their way from a traditional print-based model.
The company, part of the global LexisNexis group, is also serious about expanding into other content.
According to CEO Billy Last, LexisNexis SA also operates in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and Mauritius. The only remaining question was whether it would drive expansion through greenfields initiatives or through acquisitions. "We see good growth opportunities in everything we do," Last said. "Nigeria is a huge market for us."
Africa was still largely a print market, Last said, but the undersea cables and fibre-optic networks expected to come on stream in SA would also drive internet penetration in the rest of the continent.
The relatively unknown specialist information provider has seen annual profits grow an average 20% for the past four years. It already contributes almost 21% of Kagiso Media's annual profits. Kagiso owns half the business. Over the next five years, it plans to double its value from R374m.
Once known as Butterworth Publishers, the company has transformed itself from a somewhat staid, respectable business publishing academic textbooks to what it describes as a content solutions provider.
In effect, it is providing the same type of information it always has, but the way it is serving that information is what has changed. The company still publishes legal and accounting textbooks. But it also makes national laws and law reviews available on CD-Rom and online, and provides specialised search functions.
The company's Deedsearch, a popular local search engine, allows its users to search for information on property ownership, company directorships, and even criminal records. Privacy laws ensure the last function includes the consent of the individual whose records are being searched.
"We don't own any of our data, we aggregate content," Last said. In the new media environment the emphasis was on how content was packaged.
Early next year, it would launch an integrated search function which would combine Google, LexisNexis aggregated data, and third-party client information.
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