Two of the founding directors of Incisive Media have left the company.
Nick Rapley and James Hanbury have left the B2B publisher just shy of 20 years after founding it alongside current chief executive Tim Weller.
Rapley, who had been managing director of the group’s financial services division, has made an offer to buy the Investment Europe brand from Incisive.
Hanbury has stood down as group managing director but will continue to be involved in the company on a part-time non-executive basis.
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The management shake-up also sees the departure of Matt McGowan as managing director of Incisive in North America, while Asia Pacific managing director Jonathon Whiteley will lead the UK financial services, legal and insurance businesses.
The departures are being seen by The Media Briefing as a precursor to the business being either sold or broken up. But one Incisive insider told Press Gazette that there was no prospect of an imminent sale.
In an email to staff last week, Weller said: “As a business we continually review the best structure to meet the demands of the markets we serve, and from time to time change is inevitable.
“At this point in time, our focus is on ensuring that we have our people, our strongest assets, deployed where they can make the greatest difference and to ensure that the size of our overhead is proportionate to the profitability of the business.”
Incisive, which publishes Investment Week, Post and Legal Week, among other business titles, was taken over by private equity house Apax in a £208 million deal in 2006. In 2008 the group breached its banking covenants and was said to owe more than £400m.
Press Gazette understands that an extended bank facility was agreed last year meaning debt is not now repayable until 2015.
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