Categories: OLD Media Moves

Frontrunner emerges in bidding for energy news service Argus Media

Private equity firm General Atlantic has emerged as the frontrunner in an auction to buy a controlling stake in energy news service Argus Media, reports Joseph Cotterill, Neil Hume and Arash Massoudi of the Financial Times.

Cotterill, Hume and Massoudi write, “The sale of a 50 per cent-plus stake would see members of the founding Nasmyth family pocket hundreds of millions of pounds. It would also make dozens of Argus employees — including some of its senior journalists — paper multimillionaires. These include chairman Adrian Binks and Ian Bourne, the editor-in-chief.

“General Atlantic declined to comment, while Argus could not be reached for comment.

“Argus is expected to generate earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of around £45m in 2016, the people said, placing a multiple of at least 20 times on the business.

“In contrast to traditional news organisations, which have struggled amid falling circulation and the shift to digital advertising, groups that focus on providing specialist industry data are thriving.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.