The chief executive of Hubert Burda Media UK, Luke Patten, has bought the company’s real-life titles Love It! and Full House!
HBM said the magazines had been sold to a company called Pep Publishing, which according to a Companies House report was incorporated in February with Patten as sole director.
A spokesman for HBM said Patten would continue in his role as chief executive of the company, confirming that Pep Publishing was not a subsidiary of HBM but wholly-owned by Patten.
Under the terms of the sale all current stuff will be transferred to Pep Publishing and no redundancies are anticipated.
HBM, a subsidiary of German magazine publisher Hubert Burda Media GmbH, established itself in the UK with the launch of launch of Full House! in 2005, acquiring specialist magazine publisher Essential Publishing a year later.
It bought Love It! from News International in December 2008. According to the most recent ABC figures, sales of Full House! were down 1.1 per cent to 172,015, while Love It! Was down 17.5 per cent to 200,027.
The sell-off means HBM now has five titles in its portfolio: Your Home, Wedding Magazine, Wedding Flowers, Essential Kitchen Bathroom Bedroom, and the recently launched lifestyle magazine LandLove.
In a statement, Fabrizio D’angelo, head of Hubert Burda International, said: ‘We are concentrating on our growing UK portfolio of monthly titles with a continuing strategy of acquisition and international group launches. We wish Pep every success.”
A spokesman for London-based Pep said: ‘We are delighted to have acquired these magazines and such an experienced team.”
In January 2010 HBM sold its Health & Fitness magazine to Dennis Publishing, before acquiringWedding and Wedding Flowers magazines from IPC Media later that year.
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