For those of us who work in the legal marketing and media world, it’s interesting to keep up with the corporate comings and goings at the big legal publishers.
According to Sky News, Incisive Media, the owner of Legal Week and other professional magazines, is to undergo a financial restructuring to work down its £100 million debt.
Sky reports that Alchemy Partners has been acquiring Incisive Media’s debts in recent weeks and now owns a quarter of Incisive’s borrowings.
Incisive has had an eventful decade to say the least.
In 2006, the company was bought out by private equity investor Apax Partners, and then in 2007, Incisive acquired American Lawyer Media in a $630 million deal.
Having bought ALM at the top of the market, the post-crisis advertising downturn hit Incisive hard and it breached its lending covenants in 2008 as debt grew to nine times earnings.
Following a restructuring, Apax took full control of Incisive’s US-based ALM titles and legal journals in 2009, while the UK part of the business remained in the control of its lenders, including RBS.
As well as Legal Week, Incisive Media publishes more than 100 titles, such as Investment Week and the leading accountancy magazine, Accountancy Age.
Interesting times ahead for Incisive: could the company be sold wholesale, or individual titles sold off to management and/or trade buyers?
(Incisive Media London office, courtesy of Mark Hillary)
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