Luxury Publishing has acquired Spear’s Wealth Management Survey, the international quarterly, and will also be taking over Spear Media’s stable of contract magazines in a bid to take the brand global. The deal is worth £1.2m with a similar amount in investment to follow.
International editions of the magazine are planned in Asia, India and the USA. The company will now seek media partners in the new territories to assist with the launches.
The company is making a number of appointments in the next few months and is currently in talks with two ‘high-profile’individuals for editorial roles within the company. It is also looking for a digital director, circulation and subscriptions managers.
William Cash, a former foreign correspondent for The Times, launched Spear’s Wealth Management Survey in April 2006, distributing to an exclusive database of the 30,000 richest people in the UK and charging a discounted rate of £100 for four issues a year.
The key to Spear’s success, said Cash, was tapping into unhitherto explored advertising opportunities within the commercial and banking sector, buoyed by the wealth management boom in London.
‘There was a whole group of private banks and advertising bodies who were desperate to advertise and didn’t have anywhere to. So that was our gap in the market,’said Cash, who added that neither advertisers nor readers wanted the title to be on the newsstand.
‘We just don’t believe in the retail model for us because we don’t believe the likes of Philip Green [Arcadia Group owner] is going to schlep down to WH Smith to buy a personal finance magazine,’said the publisher.
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