HFM launches Elle Orient

Hachette Filipacchi Médias Group is set to launch Elle Orient, the 39th edition of Elle, for distribution in Arab countries.

Hachette Filipacchi Médias Group, in collaboration with Désirée Sadek, is set to launch Elle Orient, the 39th edition of Elle, for distribution in Arab countries.

This new magazine is the result of HFM’s acquisition of a majority stake in Byzance, the holding company headed by Désirée Sadek, which for the last two and a half years has been publishing two French-language editions of the decoration magazine Byzance in the Middle East and Europe. As part of this agreement, the new Arabic edition of the bimonthly Byzance will be launched in late April (the May-June issue).

The two editions of the monthly Elle Orient (in Arabic and French) will be launched in late May 2006. The magazines will be distributed in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco.

In October, the Arabic edition will be supplemented by two additional editions, one in the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, the other in Saudi Arabia.

HFM Group is particularly happy to publish Elle Orient from Beirut, where Hachette has been present for so many years.

HFM, the world’s leading magazine publisher, has subsidiaries in nine of the world’s ten largest magazine markets. Outside of France, the Group is present in 39 countries and publishes 202 magazines, one-third of which are editions of its flagship publications. Elle, which tops the list of these, is the world’s best-selling magazine.