HM Capital Partners LLC (formerly Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst), a Dallas-based private equity firm, announced a deal to acquire Phone Directories Company LP, one of the largest independent providers of yellow page directories in North America for an undisclosed price.
This is the third yellow pages acquisition for HM in recent years. It previously bought Yell from British Telecom in 2001 and Phone Directories Canada (renamed Canpages) from PDC in December 2005.
Headquartered in Orem, Utah, PDC has been in the directories publishing business for more than 37 years and publishes directories in 137 markets across the Western and Midwestern United States, distributing more than eight million copies.
The acquisition of PDC is the first investment by HM Capital's Sector Performance Fund LP.
SmartMedia observation: Are we missing something here? What is the advantage in consolidating a dying business? Who in the Internet generation even thinks of using the yellow pages? As much as the Internet has hurt all sorts of media, it looks like it should take just a few more years to wipe out the printed yellow pages completely – and their related websites have lots and lots of new competitors.
