St. Ives offloads magazine business

14th Mar 2011 13:34

Printing group St. Ives is to sell its loss making magazine business to private equity group Walstead Investments for £20m. The magazine business prints titles such as Time Out and the Economist and employs 670 people. It made a pre-tax loss of £5.1m in the year to July 31.Shares in St. Ives jumped more than 10% after announcing the deal. "St Ives has continued to experience particularly tough conditions in the Magazine business' markets in recent years, where excess capacity has exerted significant downward price pressure, resulting in poor levels of profitability," the company said. "These markets also face structural challenges with the increasing trend of migration of advertising and content into digital formats."