SanomaWSOY to change name to Sanoma

Current name seen as cumbersome

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The SanomaWSOY media group plans to shorten its name to Sanoma as of October this year. The name change will require the approval of a proposal by the group's Annual General Meeting in April.
      Sanoma Corporation, the part of SanomaWSOY which publishes newspapers, will be renamed Sanoma News.
      CEO Hannu Syrjänen said that the change was motivated by increased international activities. He says that the name Sanoma is an easy word to remember in all language areas in which the group is involved.
      Syrjänen rejected suspicions that the name change might portend that SanomaWSOY would be getting out of book publishing. "There are no secret plans included in the change", he insisted at the press conference.
     
WSOY will remain part of the media group, focusing on publishing books, producing information targeting corporations, and in providing services and educational material.
      The General Meeting is also scheduled to replace an outgoing member of the group's Board of Directors. Rafaela Seppälä, the niece of Aatos Erkko, the largest single holder of SanomaWSOY stock, is to replace her brother Robin Langenskiöld on the board.
     
Although the new name is seen to be less cumbersome and less awkward than the present combination of a word and four-letter abbreviation, Jorma Kaimio, the retired managing director of WSOY publishers, has some wistful feelings about the change. However, even he admits that during travel abroad, he experienced "the same difficulties that all others did: the name is hard to pronounce in English."
     
WSOY author Hannu Rintala is not happy with the upcoming change. "It appears that the effects of the merger (between Sanoma and WSOY) on general literature and publishing are coming with a ten year delay.
      In his view, "the starting points for reasonably profitable and long-span book publishing are not at all compatible with the aim of maximising profit by a large listed company".
      "The fact that the letters WSOY are pronounced differently in different languages is naturally a good reason for a change. It could also be that the logo produced by [late 19th and early 20th century Finnish painter] Akseli Gallen-Kallela is difficult to turn into a rubber stamp."


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Dutch CEO to head SanomaWSOY´s book publishing division (26.9.2006)

Links:
  SanomaWSOY Corp. Press Release 7 Feb 2008: SanomaWSOY Renamed Sanoma

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