Lithuanians to publish Cosmopolitan magazine in Latvia

							Lithuanians to publish Cosmopolitan magazine in Latvia

VILNIUS, Feb 27, BNS - The Lithuanian company Ieva, which publishes Cosmopolitan
magazine under a franchise, has set up a Lithuanian-Latvian joint venture, A&L Publishing,
and started publishing the magazine in Latvia.

Viktoras Tombakas, the publisher of Cosmopolitan, told BNS the first issue of the magazine
in the Latvian language had a circulation of 26,000 copies.

Ieva owns 60 percent of shares in A&L Publishing, with another 40 held by Latvian
nationals. A&L Publishing has also bought a franchise to use the Cosmopolitan brand in
Latvia.

Cosmopolitan has been published in Lithuania since 1998 and has a circulation of 30,000 to
35,000 copies.

Tombakas declined to name the amount of investment into the operations in Latvia, but
noted that investment should bear fruit in three years.

"Latvia is a promising market and it seems that the idea to publish Cosmopolitan in Latvia is
going to work. The quality of publications in Lithuania is very high, which is not the case in
Latvia," Tombakas said.

One the largest-selling magazines in the world, Cosmopolitan is published by Hearst
Corporation, which has decided to allow magazine sales in Latvia in view of high sales in
Lithuania. Cosmopolitan is published in 43 countries, with Latvia to become the 44th one.

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