Yellow Book (directory)
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| Privately owned company | |
| Industry | Media |
| Founded | 2001 |
| Headquarters | Reading, Berkshire, United Kingdom |
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Key people
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Alfred Mockett (Chairman), David Sharman (Group CEO), Richard Hanscott (CEO UK), Kevin Jasper (CEO US) |
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Number of employees
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12,531 (2012) |
| Subsidiaries | Yell |
| Website | hibucorporate.com |
hibu (styled hibü), formerly Yell Group plc, is a multinational directories and internet services company headquartered in Reading, Berkshire, UK. It has operations in the United Kingdom (known as Yell), the United States, and Spain (known as Paginas Amarillas). It has its origins in the yellow pages division of the privatised British telecommunications operator BT Group.
In 1966, Post Office Telecommunications – a division of the UK General Post Office, launched the first UK Yellow Pages classified directory in Brighton, Sussex. Yellow Pages were rolled out across the UK by 1973, and became the first information provider on Prestel.
Yellow Pages launched its iconic J. R. Hartley adverts in 1983, and became a separately identified business within the BT Group after BT was privatised in 1984. The red fronted Business Pages launched in 1985 in Bristol and South Wales, and the telephone directory enquiries information service Talking Pages was piloted in Brighton and Bristol from 1987, which then became known as 118 24 7 after 2003. The group launched Yell.com, its UK local search engine, in 1996 and acquired YellowBook USA in 1999 for $665 million.
The Group was renamed Yell in 2000 and BT restructured in 2001 and agreed to sell the Yell directory business to private equity firms Apax Partners and Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst (today operating in Europe as Lion Capital LLP) for £2.14 billion/$3.5 billion, making it then the largest non-corporate LBO in European history.
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