Nine of
Highbury House’s magazines have been bought by regional newspaper
publisher Archant for £6.1m in the latest breakup of the company.
The
deal covers six local lifestyle magazines – Southwest, The Hill, The
Guide, Living South , The Green and Northwest -which are distributed
free to 400,000 upmarket homes in London, and three Property Mart
editions distributed in Essex and East London.
Highbury is already due to be bought by Future in a £96.5m deal, but the deal does not include the Archant sale.
An
Archant spokesman said there were no planned redundancies for the 76
existing staff at the titles, but it was not known if they would have
to move offices.
John Fry, Archant chief executive, said: “We
have a clear local community publishing ethos and we will continue to
seek purchases, launches and organic growth that add good quality
community publications to our fast-growing portfolio.”
The
lifestyle titles will now join the Archant Life group of county and
townbased magazines under MD Johnny Hustler, while the Property Mart
editions will join the Archant London stable.
Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog