By Alyson Fixter
Imagine Publishing has snapped up a batch of
computing titles from struggling Highbury House, returning many of them
to the original management team that sold them to Highbury in 2003.
Imagine,
set up last year by Damian Butt and two other former directors of
Paragon Publishing, is believed to have bought all 24 of Highbury
Entertainment’s Bournemouth-based magazines, including GamesTM, Play,
Advanced Photoshop and Digital Photographer.
Private equity firm Kleinwort Capital has invested £7m into backing Imagine’s purchase.
In
a letter published on the blog The Word Is Not Enough, managing
director Butt said: “We are now trying to create as many new jobs for
the existing employees as we can.”
In a statement, Butt said:
“This is an extremely important acquisition for Imagine and it helps us
to not only develop an already exciting business, but also stimulate
further substantial growth.
“Imagine immediately becomes the
second largest videogames publisher in the UK, a market set for
explosive growth in 2006 to 07.”
Highbury itself has been
officially announced to be in receivership, and it is believed that the
sell-off of further titles is close to being announced.
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