Centaur Regulatory News (CAU)

Acquires digital information business for £8m

New £40m financing facility secured

Centaur Media plc, (LSE: CAU, "Centaur" or "the Group"), the business information and events group, has acquired Profile Group (UK) Limited ("Profile"), a specialist digital information business for media, PR and marketing professionals, for a total cash consideration of £8m.

Centaur has separately secured a £40m four year revolving credit facility in order to fund its acquisition programme.

Profile (www.profilegroup.co.uk) provides forward planning and contact information to media, PR and marketing professionals to enable them to optimise journalistic workflow and plan future PR and sponsorship campaigns. Revenues are derived exclusively from subscriptions to a range of digital products which offer complementary services from a single web platform. Profile's information brands include Fashion Monitor, Red Pages, Entertainment News, Year Ahead and Foresight News.

Profile will become part of the Business Information Division, alongside digital information and workflow businesses Perfect Information (serving the global corporate adviser market) and VBR (operating in the global clean technology and security sectors).

Profile will benefit from collaboration with Centaur's existing brands, Marketing Week and Creative Review (serving the marketing and creative agency sectors) and the Headline Group (serving specialist media and PR professionals).

Profile, which is a market leader in its field, was founded in 1988 as a print directory business by Robert Barclay. The management team, which successfully migrated the business to digital delivery in the past three years will be staying with the business. Revenues in 2011 were £3.1m, with ebitda of £1m, producing a margin of 32%. The business derives most of its revenues in the UK, but has now launched three of its services in the USA, with encouraging early success.

The acquisition is expected to be earnings enhancing in its first full year of Centaur ownership. 

Geoff Wilmot, CEO of Centaur, said:

"Profile is a good fit with our core strategic objectives of growing digital subscription revenues in our core markets and expanding our international capabilities.

"We will accelerate Profile's growth by: offering an exceptional route to market through our leading brands Marketing Week and Creative Review; the application of the successful Headline Group model to vertical markets served by Profile; and by leverage of Profile's technology and business model in other parts of the Group.

"The new revolving credit facility will fund this acquisition and provides us with the necessary resources to support our acquisitions programme."

Robert Barclay, founder of Profile, said:

"I am delighted that Profile has found a new home with Centaur, who are well placed to build on and develop the work carried out by the management team in the last few years. I wish Centaur and Profile every success for the future in taking the company on to a new level."

Enquiries