The £4m Swanley, Kent-based printing and mailing house purchased the rights to publish Facilities Management Journal (FMJ), Cleaning Hygiene Today, The Flooring Magazine and supplements Women FM and Month in FM in mid-May after publisher Diamond Media’s parent company Sparta Press, went into administration. KPM was already providing fulfillment services for all five magazines.
The key acquisition was FMJ which boasts a circulation of 4,000 printed monthly magazines and 12,000 online subscribers.
In creating KPM Media, ten existing staff transferred to a new unit purchased by KPM in March. Around £75,000 was spent on investing in new equipment and software for KPM Media, reported managing director Nigel Copp.
He said that a boosted turnover of around £750,000 by the end of year one would come not just from revenues generated directly from the newly acquired titles, but also from offering editorial and creative services to existing customers.
"Normally we’re taking briefs a bit further down the line, but now we can look at newsletters or leaflets and offer those services out as an additional creative element; some of the smaller companies we work with, some of the charities, are always interested with help in that area," said Copp.
Copp qualified though that it would take some time before this new venture really delivered its full potential: "This is something that will take a while to move forward. I don’t think it will deliver massive growth in year one but thereafter as we develop the publishing strand hopefully this will add a significant amount to our turnover."
He added that the acquisitions would also eventually boost the business once the company began to leverage subscriber list data.
"We are concentrating on building the client relationship and trust at this stage. Once we have done that, and only then, as a second stage we will look at offering our other services to customers on the magazine subscriber lists," he said.
The purchase of the Sparta Press magazines was made as part of an overall two-year investment plan. This resulted in the company trebling its floor space to 1,115 sqm last year and growing this to 1,860sqm this year. As part of the most recent growth it also doubled its enclosing capacity in 2012 and this January the company invested around £100,000 in a Ricoh Pro C901 digital press.
Copp added that he was also in discussions to acquire another DM company in the near future.
