Future acquires Dennis for £300m
Future Plc has acquired Dennis Publishing, it has been announced today. The deal, which moves leading wealth, knowledge, and B2B brands across to the Future portfolio, was executed for a reported purchase price of £300m.
Tweeting this morning, Future said: ‘We’re excited to announce the acquisition of Dennis, bolstering our Wealth, Knowledge and B2B Technology verticals and further enhancing our audience in North America. We look forward to welcoming the new brands on board.’
Commenting on the acquisition directly, Zillah Byng-Thorne, CEO of Future, added: “I am delighted to announce the acquisition of Dennis, a high-quality portfolio of trusted brands that will accelerate our strategy, enhance our content capabilities and bring additional geographical and vertical revenue diversification, whilst materially increasing the proportion of recurring revenues across the Group.”
“The materially earnings enhancing acquisition is highly complementary to our longstanding ‘US first’ mindset and provides an attractive opportunity to scale our recently created ‘Wealth’ vertical, whilst diversifying our presence in our ‘Knowledge’ and ‘B2B Technology’ verticals. I look forward to welcoming our new colleagues to Future, and to continuing the successful execution of our strategy to generate long-term sustainable growth and attractive returns for our shareholders.”
The print and online brands moving to Future include:
- The Week UK/The Week US
- The Week Junior UK/The Week Junior US
- MoneyWeek
- Kiplinger
- Science & Nature
- IT Pro
- Computeractive
- PC Pro
- Minecraft World
- COACH
Over the last five years, Future has acquired assets worth £1.1billion and increased its underlying business by more than £2billion. Earlier this year, the company added the GoCo Group and Marie Claire US to its portfolio.
Exponent, the private equity firm that bought Dennis in 2018, recently separated automotive content and eCommerce platform, Autovia, which will remain in the company’s portfolio. Dennis Publishing CEO, James Tye, will remain with the Dennis Publishing Brands following completion and as part of the Future Group.
