Centaur Media buys Profile Group for £8m

Business-to-business publisher Centaur Media has bought digital information business Profile Group, owner of Foresight News, in an £8m deal - and has secured extra funding to acquire more businesses.

Profile Group specialises in providing information to the media, PR and entertainment industries. Its Foresight News brand is a forward-planning tool for news editors and PRs, and the group also owns Entertainment News, Fashion Monitor and celebrity agent directory Red Pages.

Founded by Robert Barclay in 1998 as a print directory business, the group has now moved to digital delivery and generated £3.1m in revenue last year and a 32 per cent profit margin, according to today's sale announcement.

Profile Group will now become part of Centaur's business information division, alongside titles such as Marketing Week and Creative Review.

Centaur also announced today that it had secured access to £40m of credit to fund further acquisitions.

Chief executive Geoff Wilmot said in a release: "Profile is a good fit with our core strategic objectives of growing digital subscription revenues in our core markets and expanding our international capabilities."

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