Future Fuels Motoring Portfolio With A&S Acquisition
Specialist magazine giant, Future Publishing, has acquired A&S Publishing for £5.95 million, adding the firm’s 11 motoring magazine titles to its portfolio and gaining the rights to eight national motoring events.
Amongst the titles acquired under the deal are Classic Ford, Fast Ford, Mini Magazine, Total Vauxhall, Retro Cars and Total BMW. Commenting on the purchase, Robert Price, managing director of Future, said: “This is another step in Future’s exciting growth phase and builds on the success of our own motoring title, Redline.”
He added: “It’s an area we ve been looking to expand into for some time and the A&S titles will give us immediate critical mass in the motoring segment. Additionally the events side of the business will open up many new commercial opportunities for us. We are delighted to welcome the publishing and editorial teams to Future and to add these titles and events to the Future portfolio.”
No major changes are planned for the editorial content of the magazines, which will form part of Future’s Entertainment Group under the responsibility of publishing director, Andy Semple, and group publisher, Peter Stothard. A&S’ managing director, Peter Minnis, will work with Future as a consultant during the transition period.
The deal marks Future’s third acquisition in the past two months. In December the company announced that it had acquired What Laptop magazine from Crimson Publishing, and that Beach Publishing, which publishes Junior, Junior Pregnancy & Baby and Wedding Day would also become part of the Future Network (see Future Expands Portolio With Beach Acquisition).
The publisher has also signalled its intent to launch a programme aggressive new promotional activity for its portfolio of titles, hiring Richard Schofield as its new head of marketing last year to oversee the new marketing push (see Future Appoints Marketing Head For Aggressive Strategy).
Future Publishing: 01225 442 244 www.futurenet.com
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