How and Why the BBC Messed Up its Acquisition of Lonely Planet
Skift Take
However BBC Trust wants to apportion the blame, the reality is the management screwed-up badly here: the people who BBC entrusted to make this happen, and the integration, and the the top management it brought in to run it. It should have named names.
Seven months after BBC Worldwide sold Lonely Planet to NC2 Media for around $80 million (£51.5 million), the BBC Trust has published its scathing review of the broadcaster's six-year history with the travel publisher. The BBC purchased 75% of Lonely Planet from company founder Tony Wheeler in 2007, and the remaining 25% in 2011.
After the sale, the BBC came under heavy criticism for losing nearly £80 million on the deal, and this report details how BBC and Lonely Planet management messed up in all aspects, from the start, to execution and even the subsequent sale. And the report details the lessons BBC can learn for the future: "Mistakes were made and we will learn from them," it says, in typical British passive-aggressive bureaucratese.
Mistakes detailed by the stage of the deal:
Acquisition
The forecasts on which the valuation was based were too aggressive, especially as regards the unproven online businesses
An EBITDA margin of 30% was highly opti
