European Investment Bank enters into a €100 million loan deal with the DPG Media Group to digitize media platforms
The European Investment Bank (EIB) has entered into a EUR 100 million loan agreement with the DPG Media Group.
The agreement is part of a major investment project to the tune of EUR 244m by the DPG Media Group. The loan will be used to finance the development of DPG’s digital media platforms in Belgium and the Netherlands.
The EIB’s financing will be used to accelerate the digital transposition of existing brands and media and create new, secure and qualitative digital networks for advertisers and consumers on the other.
The intended innovations must facilitate the high-quality dissemination of local content through DPG Media’s platforms in addition to incorporating new functionality such as AI. At the same time, these new developments must also increase the transparency and safety of the advertisement market. The investments, which will continue until 2023, must enable DPG Media Group to maintain its competitive, local position in the globalising media landscape.
The European media landscape is becoming increasingly competitive and more digitally-driven, with global tech giants playing a greater and increasingly dominant part in it. Local media companies are having to contend with increasing competition from these large tech companies, both in the advertisement market and in terms of content distribution.
Kris Peeters, Vice-President, EIB: “Digitalisation is a strategic priority for Europe, and access and security play an important part in this. The current media landscape is becoming increasingly competitive, underscoring the importance of investments in innovation and digitalisation. This loan agreement demonstrates the importance and relevance of EIB financing for European companies, ranging from medical technology companies to SMEs, or even a large media company such as DPG. We are very pleased to provide support to the DPG Media Group for the further digitalisation of their productions and the advertisement market.”
Christian Van Thillo, Executive Chairman, DPG Media Group: “As a media player in the Belgian and Dutch markets, we work hard every day to provide qualitative, reliable and local content. We continuously invest in our newsrooms, which monitor and report on events in both of these countries. At the same time, we strive to guarantee our consumers the best possible user experience across all of our digital platforms. That is why it is vital that we invest even more in all of these platforms, including in news platforms such as AD.nl and HLN.be and in our VTM GO and Streamz video platforms.
Finally, we are also building our own trusted web every single day. This digital ecosystem connects all our strong brands, offering advertisers a secure, qualitative alternative to the open web that is dominated, at technological level, by Google among others with fake news playing an increasingly harmful role. Advertisers can use the DPG Media trusted web to efficiently reach the majority of the Belgian and Dutch populations or develop very targeted advertising relying on the data that we can provide to them. We are pleased to cooperate with the European Investment Bank on this investment project, which guarantees a sustainable financial policy.”
