It’s that time of the year. Inevitably, our New Year predictions are a blend of deals that will (almost) definitely happen and those that might or should. See you in 2019. B2B Informa, now the world’s largest exhibitions group after acquiring UBM in 2018, divests its STM and B2B information companies UK B2B Centaur Media…
Immediate brings growth back to UK magazines
London-based Immediate Media has won the lucrative contract to publish Disney children’s magazines which, it is believed, will add some £12m (5%) to its revenues in 2019. The UK contract was formerly held by the £50m-revenue UK subsidiary of the Danish-owned Egmont group which first published Disney magazines in Scandinavia all of 70 years ago. The…
Euromoney snaps up The Deal
The UK-listed Euromoney Institutional Investor plc (Euromoney) is buying The Deal (an M&A database) and BoardEx (profiles of business leaders) from TheStreet Inc in a transaction which highlights the divergent fortunes of two financial media groups. On the one hand, the cashed-up, increasingly US-focused Euromoney is paying $87.3m for two subscriptions businesses that cost TheStreet…
PistonHeads sold, DriveTribe next?
CarGurus, the Nasdaq company which claims to be the largest online car vendor in the US and also the fastest-growing in the UK (where it’s still tiny), is buying PistonHeads from Haymarket Media Group for a price believed to be about £12-15m. The perfectly-branded online platform was launched in 1999 and acquired by Haymarket for…
How high will exhibition prices go?
Alone among the media-marketing sectors that pre-date the internet, exhibitions keep growing in profitability and value, and don’t investors know it. Whatever the potential digital disruption, trade shows continue to thrive (especially in the emerging economies) as real-life marketplaces in an increasingly digital world. Another week and another exhibitions group is up for grabs. This…
What next for RELX?
The Reed Business Information (RBI) division of the £32bn RELX Group is selling its Netherlands agricultural business media to a company being formed (curiously) by three prominent Dutch publishers. RELX will retain a minority share in the new company, Misset, founded by Derk Haank (ex CEO of Elsevier and Springer Nature), Cor Jan Willig (current…
Is it the end for Centaur Media?
Everybody in UK media likes Centaur: employees, journalists and even long-suffering investors who have stuck with its under-performing shares for a decade and more. The £70m-revenue UK company has been a prominent part of B2B media since the 1978 launch of Marketing Week by founder Graham Sherren. But now it’s preparing for a January sale. An…
Will Australia’s Nine become the model media group?
On Monday (19 November), shareholders of Australia’s 177-year-old Fairfax Media are expected to approve its A$4bn ‘merger’ with the Nine Entertainment Company (NEC). What is really an all-share acquisition will bring together the Channel Nine TV network and the country’s most famous newspapers – the Sydney Morning Herald, Melbourne’s The Age, and the Australian Financial…
Gilded Naspers needs partners
Naspers, of South Africa, is preparing to de-merge Africa’s largest TV group MultiChoice whose DStv was a pioneering digital satellite broadcaster when it launched in 1995. With its Showmax streaming service, MultiChoice provides some 14m subscribers (half in South Africa) with original content and international programmes, including English Premier League football, Formula One, and Game…
Centaur Media on sale
Quick read. UK listed B2B company Centaur Media confirmed it is appointing advisers to explore potential asset sales, as part of a downbeat trading update for shareholders. The company, which made operating profit of £6.6m on revenue of £72.6m in 2017, is best known for its marketing-media information services, events and publications including Marketing Week, eConsultancy,…
