Life In Dead Trees: UBM Buying A Chinese Paper Analyst Firm

United Business Media (LSE: UBM) is spending up to $880,000 to buy UM Paper, a small Shanghai company which provides analysis on China’s paper industry.

UM Paper gathers paper pricing info including regional and national and historic pricing trends, and publishes a subscription newsletter to industry readers including box makers, publishers and printers.

UBM is making the acquisition from Samwell Group for $440,000, with a further $440,000 over the next two years, based on performance, and will put UM Paper together with its own RISI, a larger forest and paper products analyst firm.

It says 11-staff UM Paper will give it $300,000 revenue in 2010.

Newsprint prices have been rising in recent years, and UBM says: “In 2009, China became the world’s largest market for forest products and is expected to generate more than half the industry’s growth over the next 20 years.”