Highbury shareholders approve magazines sale to Future

Daniel Farey-Jones, brandrepublic.com, Friday, 17 June 2005, 11:00am,

LONDON - Future is completing the purchase of 38 magazines from Highbury next Tuesday after Highbury shareholders approved the £30.5m deal.

Future is buying magazines including Fast Car, Fast Bikes, DJ, DVD Review, the What Video group of magazines and Highbury's puzzle magazines.

The deal also includes Highbury's US business, where it publishes five magazines, which Future will add to its existing US titles.

According to Highbury's 2004 accounts, the magazines generated total turnover of £34.1m last year.

Greg Ingham, chief executive of Future, said: "This is Future's biggest ever deal and these titles will be fine additions to our burgeoning portfolio. We're looking forward to welcoming the people working on them to Future next week."

Future initially planned to acquire Highbury outright but aborted its bid when the Office of Fair Trading said it would need to be examined by the Competition Commission due to the two companies' dominant position in computer games magazines.

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This article was first published on brandrepublic.com