UK magazine-centric company Metropolis Group has acquired a range of B2C brands from Dennis Publishing. The magazines include Fortean Times, Viz and Cyclist which were not acquired by Future when it bought The Week and other brands for £300m.
Metropolis – which is believed to have paid £2.2m for the former Dennis magazines – was established in 1994 and owns some 40 brands, primarily in B2B verticals, including Drapers, Money Marketing, Property Week, Architects’ Journal and What Mortgage.
The company, which is privately owned by investment manager Jonathan Mills, had 2021 revenue of £44m (2020: £32.3m) and EBITDA of £7.5m (£1.2m) – a profit margin of 17%. Some 36% of its revenue came from live and virtual events, 22% from subscriptions, and 39% from advertising (two-thirds digital).
With the exception of pandemic year 2020, Metropolis’ underlying EBITDA (ie excluding investment income, exceptional costs and discontinued business) has consistently been in the range of £7.3-7.6m for the past five years.
