Friday 20th January 2006

Imagine acquires 24 Highbury titles

Ambitious Bournemouth-based publisher snaps up the rights to publish Highbury Entertainment’s specialist magazines

Imagine Publishing, the company formed by Damian Butt, Mark Kendrick and Steven Boyd in May 2005, has today announced the Kleinwort Capital-backed acquisition of the computing, digital photography and videogames titles from the receivers of Highbury Entertainment, a subsidiary of Highbury House Communications.

The acquired titles include: Play, PowerStation, iCreate, Digital Photographer, gamesTM, X360, Digital Camera Essentials, PDA Essentials, Advanced Photoshop, Web Designer and Windows XP Made Easy. A full review is now under way to determine which magazines from the enlarged portfolio will continue to be published. The first enhanced high quality issues from Imagine will be published in late February.

The newly acquired titles will join the existing Imagine magazine portfolio, which includes 360, Mac Creative, Cheat Machine, Photoshop Creative, Digital Video Techniques and Retro Gamer. The acquisition will reunite the Imagine management team with a majority of the consumer magazine titles sold to Highbury in June 2003 as part of Highbury’s £32 million acquisition of Paragon Publishing. The Imagine management team has launched over 60 specialist magazines in the last ten years.

Damian Butt, Managing Director of Imagine Publishing commented:

“This is an extremely important acquisition for Imagine and it helps us to not only develop an already exciting business, but also stimulate further substantial growth. Kleinwort’s involvement and support throughout has been first class, and with this deal, Imagine immediately becomes the second largest videogames publisher in the UK, a market set for explosive growth in 2006/07. The Imagine management team acknowledges the great support of its existing shareholders and is looking forward to galvanising the enlarged magazine portfolio and firmly establishing Imagine as a world class publishing company.”

Imagine Publishing
01202 586200
www.imagine-publishing.co.uk