Apax to buy Incisive Media

Incisive Media the Publisher of titles such as Investment Week, Risk and Your Mortgage is to be sold for £199m (US$375m).

Apax Partners, through its bid company Apax Summer, has agreed a 195p per share offer to acquire Incisive Media, the UK publisher of a range of titles including the Initiative Europe group of titles.

This is a relatively small transaction for Apax in a bid to position themselves as industry consolidators going forward. Incisive itself had attempted to consolidate but failed in its attempt to acquire both Centaur and the FT Business Group of magazines. Centaur is now a likely candidate for an approach by Apax.

The offer values Incisive Media’s share capital at £199m (US$375m), and represents a premium of 13% to the closing price of 173p per share on 20 September. The proposal is a multiple of 16.7X Incisive Media’s EBITDA for the year ended 31 December 2005.

Tim Weller, CEO of Incisive Media, who founded the company as City Financial Communications in 1994, together with management staff Jamie Campbell-Harris, James Hanbury and Nick Rapley, will invest £5.9 million of their current investment in Incisive Media (representing 30% of their proceeds from the offer), into a holding entity of Apax Summer for approximately 11.9%.

Stephen Grabiner, a partner of Apax Partners, said: “We are delighted Incisive Media’s Independent Directors responded positively to both our offer and our plans for the future. We have considerable experience in the media sector and following detailed discussions, it is clear our long term growth strategies are aligned.

Lazard advised Apax Partners; Greenhill advised Incisive Media.