Weekly Wrap Up: Print isn’t dead yet

This week shares in Centaur Media, the publisher of the Lawyer and Corporate Adviser trade magazines, fell by 28.7% after it issued a profit warning and sacked its Chief Executive. The company blamed a loss of print advertising from recruiters and independent financial advisors for its profits coming in 25% lower than analysts had forecast. Trade publications are usually the first to experience an upturn of the economy, but industries such as personal finance have faced prolonged uncertainty following the new rules for financial advisers.

Geoff Wilmot the Chief Executive who has pursued a “digital-first” strategy over the past few years has now been dismissed in a sign that Centaur will reverse this decision and put a greater focus on print in the future. Chairman, Patrick Taylor said “the print products are nicely profitable. They are not ready to be closed at all.” While the company is still seeking to reduce the share of print revenue to just one-sixth of its total revenues it will take the steps to get there at a slower pace. This is a sign that despite the decline in sales of many print products, there is still apparently a market for specialist publications. Don’t give up on paper quite yet.



This week we hosted two lunches, one up in Leeds for our Northern friends, and the other, a larger China themed lunch at our office in London. The China lunch was attended by 24 key influencers and advisers to Chinese companies, and a thought provoking debate was had over the reception Chinese companies receive when listing in London.

We attended other events including The Gulls’ Egg City Luncheon in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support, the Pinsent Masons Drinks Party in Leeds and the Sanlam Securities Spring Party at the City favourite, Paternoster Chophouse.

On top of all that one of our Graduate AE’s went off to a CIPR training day all about writing perfect press releases.



Rothschild
Tracy Collins has joined the bank’s wealth management business as a director in its charities team. Collins was most recently at Sarasin and Partners, where she was a senior associate partner in its charities team. Prior to that, she launched and co-managed the Asparta Fund.

BDO
The accountancy and business advisory firm has appointed David Fletcher as head of restructuring advisory within its business restructuring team. Fletcher previously worked at KPMG, and was a partner there for 12 years.

Capstone
The technology company has hired Jack Godfrey as business development director for its finance and legal client acquisition team. He joins from Pareto Law, where he held various business development and consulting roles.



London design festival kicks off next week, with some great exhibitions:
100% Design, the UK's largest trade event opens tomorrow and is open until Tuesday at Earls Court.
Independent design festival Clerkenwell Design Week features a wealth of creative businesses and architects; it runs from Tuesday until Thursday next week.

There's still time to sign up for Nike's We own the Night Women's 10k run tomorrow night at 8pm in Victoria Park.

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