Campaign Magazine Part 226 Jul 2023 12:37
It was founded in 2004 and originally focused on entertainment retailing before going on to create white-label websites for retailers such as Asda, Argos and WH Smith.
It operates its own brands, housed within a beauty division and a nutrition division, but has a third division, called Ingenuity, that provides e-commerce and marketing services to third-party brands.
It also publishes content, including three print magazines dedicated to its own brands. These are The Highlight for Look Fanstastic, The Lowdown for Zavvi and The Supplement for MyProtein.
A spokesman for THG declined to comment when asked about a potential deal.
THG is understood to be interested in the ability to reach City AM’s high-earning audience of businesspeople and, in particular, in developing the brand’s lifestyle content.
Muncaster expects that City AM will continue to distribute its print edition Mondays to Thursdays, remaining at the current print run of around 67,000 copies, and that no newsroom jobs will be lost. But, “I think Fridays are gone,” he said when asked if the paper could resume distribution on the last day of the week.
On the commercial side, he was optimistic that THG’s relatively larger “safety net of capital” would allow City AM to follow through on expansion plans that were previously put on ice due to lack of investment.
These plans would involve digital content, more events, additional verticals, international expansion and content syndication, he said. Muncaster also tipped Thursday’s edition of the paper to bulk up its lifestyle content offering.
News of City AM’s potential sale to THG was first reported by Sky News.
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