Satellite Newspapers Licenses New American Subsidiary

One of the oldest vendors of digital edition technologies hasn’t strongly penetrated the American market, but hopes a reorganization announced earlier this week will change that. PEPC Worldwide of The Hague, which earlier this month changed its name to Satellite Newspapers, manufactures and operates vending machines that can print on-demand consumers’ choices of 122 daily newspapers from 50 countries. It’s installed 115 of these machines worldwide, primarily in hotels, resorts, airports, and corporate headquarters, but only 47 of the machines are in the Western Hemisphere and only 24 in the US. To accelerate its Western Hemisphere sales efforts, SN today announced that Satellite Enterprises Corp., a Canadian holding company publicly traded on NASD’s Bulletin Board exchange (ticker NASD-BB: SENR), has paid it US$10,000 worth of stock for an irrevocably license to SN’s vending machines, technology, and its sales rights in the Western Hemisphere. SN early this month quietly purchased a controlling interest in Satellite Enterprises Corp., which had no active business holdings; is moving it from Calgary to Boca Raton, and has installed SN CEO Steve Mannen and CFO Niels Reijers as its new chairman and as a board director. They have hired Fred DeVries and Renato Mariani, two former telecommunications executives as Satellite Enterprises Corp.’s new CEO and as EVP and Chief Marketing Officer. None of the executives I’ve mentioned at either company have any newspaper industry experience.