Incisive Media Worthless - Ingenious
The Sunday Telegraph reports that Ingenious Media has written off its stake in Incisive Media. They were part of the investment fund put together by Apax to do the deal to buy Incisive when it went private. With so many of the large business media companies being in private hands we can't see how bad trading really is. Management at Incisive Media claim the business is still very profitable, but we have to conclude, that Ingenious at least has concluded that the outlook is not great and the mountain of debt is too steep to climb.
We would agree with that view. Incisive will have to do three things. A refinancing/ debt equity swap/injection of funds from Apax is now almost inevitable. Second, like other business media companies, a move to a new low overhead model is now urgent. Waiting for a recovery just will not do. Third, Incisive should consider the sale of some assets - even if not ideal, to focus on a smaller number of core competencies and to pay down some of its debt.
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Labels: Apax Partners, Incisive Media
posted by Businessmediablogger @ 12:28 pm
4 Comments:
Yes i agree with most of your comments re:Incisive. However, much of the value in their titles is the previous high quality jouralism, that allowed them to get to pole position in their markets. There cuts now have been so deep (and going deeper) that they are losing the capability to deliver the level of quality. This is obviously good for their competitors who don't have such debts and don't need to take such a short term view.
Interesting that Incisive still haven't posted their 2008 report and accounts. Isn't that a requirement after the Walker Report on private equity?
they probably don't have the publish their accounts until later in the year. i know for a normal limited company, if your year end is December, it's around the following October that you have to file by...
Quite telling that up to now Apax have published annual results exactly 3 months after year ends, which means Incisive should be posted on their site today. They are trying to restructure their debt according to today's FT so perhaps the figures are worse than anticipated?
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