Endless, a Leeds-based £100m buyout and turnaround fund launched at the end of last year by former Ernst & Young insolvency specialist Garry Wilson, has paid an undisclosed seven-figure sum for a clutch of the UK's oldest hobby titles and provided wo
rking capital for future expansion.
Yorkshire-based publishing entrepreneur Peter Harkness, previously chairman of Hull-based IT research firm the Butler Group, assisted Endless with the transaction.
Highbury House, the magazine publisher in which former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie owned a 20 per cent stake, went into administration last week with debts of around £40m.
Since then SMD Publishing bought lads' magazine Front, film title HotDog and DVD World and its computer magazines were sold to Imagine Publishing for an estimated £7m.
Highbury announced earlier this month that its 30 gaming, technology, entertainment and special-interest titles would be put up for sale after talks with its lenders, Royal Bank of Scotland and Allied Irish Bank, collapsed.
Mr MacKenzie spent about £1.5m on his stake in the company, becoming chairman and chief executive.
But last month he admitted he had been "defeated" by debts of £29.5m and quit Highbury House.
The business bought by Endless includes 45 staff based in Orpington, Kent, and has been renamed Encanta Media and publishes titles including The Woodworker, Practical Wood-worker, Model Boats, Gardens Monthly, Popular Patchwork, Model Engineering, Military Modelling and Radio Controlled Modelling and Electronics.
The division had a turnover of around £6m before Highbury's collapse – and was profitable.
Endless completed the transaction within 14 days of its first contact with the accountants who were assisting Highbury's board prior to the group's demise.
Mr Wilson said: "We are delighted to have brought together the funding to secure the future of this quality, established business."
Mr Harkness said: "The investment by Endless helps secure the future of a business that publishes some of the UK's oldest and best-loved specialist consumer magazines.
"A key component of the deal was the speed with which Endless could act, as well as the professionalism of its advisory team."
david.parkin@ypn.co.uk
Simply enchanting...
HIGHBURY House's new name Encanta Media wasn't created by an expensive brand consultancy but a 13-year-old Yorkshire schoolgirl.
While working on the deal, media entrepreneur Peter Harkness realised he would have to produce a new name so he tasked his partner's three children to come up with a name. Hattie, 13, thought of Encanta, which has its roots in the Spanish word for enchanted.
"It's the sort of thing some big companies might pay a brand consultancy millions of pounds for," said Mr Harkness, who is married to Sarah Grune-wald, former Andersen partner and a director of Leeds-based headhunter Directorbank.
Hattie is a pupil at Wakefield Girls' High School and loves languages.
