The UK’s Mark Allen B2B group (MAG) has confirmed its £6.5mn deal (7x EBITDA) to acquire the UK and Asia financial services media of Bonhill Plc, subject to the approval of Bonhill shareholders, expected within two weeks. What has been described by MAG as “a very significant purchase”, includes: Bonhill Create, Portfolio Advisor, Expert Investor, International Advisor, Fund Selector Asia, ESG Clarity and Future Flows.
The £60mn-revenue MAG is believed to have out-bid Future which had also been interested in acquiring Bonhill’s US business, Investment News which is being sold separately. It is believed Metropolis had also wanted to acquire Bonhill, and that Crain Communications, the former owner of Investment News, had been interested in buying it back.
With the US interests expected to be sold for some $10mn (£8mn) – less than half the $27mn Bonhill paid for the brand four years ago – the total net proceeds are, therefore, expected to be about £14mn. That’s about 1.5x the £9mn recent market cap.
For MAG, the deal brings a financial services portfolio which, in 2021, had some £9mn of revenue. An estimated two-thirds of the revenue is from the 17-year-old Last Word Media which had £10mn revenue in 2018, the year before it was acquired by Bonhill for £8-10mn.
The privately-owned MAG has doubled its revenue, trebled its profit and increased its headcount by 65% in the past six years, largely through spending some £50mn on more than 25 acquisitions since 2007. Its largest, the £14mn Farmers Weekly in January 2020, has been transformative and generated 30% of the MAG profit in 2021-22.
The Bonhill UK / Asia portfolio may not be as a profitable as Farmers Weekly but could prove to be pivotal in MAG‘s development, firstly because it is a significant new market for the company and, secondly, because it represents a step-up in international activity which last year accounted for just 25% of MAG revenue. It seems likely that the Bonhill business will help to increase MAG non-UK revenues to some £20-25mn (30%+) by 2023-34. B2B markets (especially events) outside the UK are an obvious growth area for the company.
The business will be managed at MAG by current Bonhill CEO Patrick Ponsford, an experienced executive who previously managed the financial services portfolio of Centaur Media – and seems to have succeeded in getting Bonhill’s shell-shocked shareholders a better exit deal than many had thought possible.
