We reported at the end of the year that Yell is moving in a new strategic direction. This week, the Yellow Pages publisher announced the appointment of Matt Anderson as its new chief strategy and business development officer. Anderson has previous experience as a partner in the consumer media and digital division of Booz & …

Heavily leveraged Yell Group has earned some breathing room from a deal with its lenders announced yesterday. Yell announced that it has reached terms with the “overwhelming majority of lenders” to increase the headroom on its debt. Without such concessions, Yell was at risk of violating the covenants, which require the company to stay within a …

Following on its announcement yesterday that it had acquired the U.S.-based e-commerce firm Znode, Yell Group has unveiled a new alliance with Microsoft to sell the software giant’s cloud-based services to its U.K. customers. The services Yell will offer will include Office 365, a cloud-based version of the popular suite of software programs.
The move appears …

Yell announced today that it acquired Znode, an e-commere software development company in a deal valued at $19 million. Znode will be incorporated into Yell Group as part of its new consumer division, Yell Connect. Znode’s technology will serve as an e-commerce platform for the U.K.-based Yellow Pages publisher. In May, we summarized Yell Group’s …

The U.K. directory publisher Yell’s stock had its best day of trading in months, leading to speculation that the company might be a takeover target. Another report suggests the increase may not be the result of a takeover bid, but rather of traders closing short positions. Yell’s shares rose by more than 13 percent Thursday …

Here is a summary of recent, noteworthy developments in the global Yellow Pages space:
Following an industry trend, U.K.-based Yell has begun distribution of a truncated Yellow Pages directory in a three-pronged effort to save paper, reduce waste and meet changing user needs. Recent consumer research underscores a desire for a book smaller in dimension. The …

The U.K.-based publisher Yell today announced it offers advertisers the ability to run targeted ads on Facebook as part of its NetReach ad syndication product, which features about 70 U.K. sites. Facebook is a significant addition to the network, with more than 26 million U.K. accounts, half of which are accessed daily.
Yell works with the …

Here are some recent items of note that we’ve come across in the Global Yellow Pages space:
BIA/Kelsey has released its Global Yellow Pages forecast, which calls for continued declines in print, offset largely by digital growth boosted by an expanding array of new products — ranging from websites to reputation management. We expect digital to account …

For the past six months or so, Mark Canon, Yell’s head of online, has been looking to either buy or partner his company’s way into the recommendations and reviews space. As he put it, “At the center, our business is about generating and capturing content about merchants.”
Canon and Yell settled on acquiring the U.K. review …

Yell Group’s longtime CEO, John Condron, and CFO John Davis are planning to leave the company. Condron will retire in May 2011, while Davis plans to leave as soon as a successor is in place. The announcements weren’t well received by financial markets. Yell shares were off by 22 percent on the announcement. The market …