| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Publishing |
| Founded | 1947 |
| Headquarters | London, United Kingdom |
| Revenue | £1.154 Billion GBP (2006) |
| Operating income | £223 Million GBP (2006) |
| Website | www.emap.com |
Emap Limited is a British media company, specialising in the production of business-to-business magazines, and the organisation of business events and conferences. The company was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but is now owned by Apax and Guardian Media Group.
"EMAP" is an acronym, standing for East Midland Allied Press.
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Richard Winfrey purchased the Spalding Guardian in 1887 and later purchased the Lynn News and the Peterborough Advertiser; he also started the North Cambs Echo. Sir Richard Winfrey (1858- 1944) was a Liberal politician and campaigner for agricultural rights and the papers were used to promote his political views in and around Spalding, Boston, Sleaford & Peterborough. During World War II Winfrey's newspaper interests began to be passed over to his son, Richard Pattinson Winfrey (1902-1985). In 1947, under the direction of 'Pat' Winfrey, the family's newspaper titles were consolidated to form the East Midland Allied Press. The company was formed by the merger of the Northamptonshire Printing and Publishing Co., the Peterborough Advertiser Co., the West Norfolk and King's Lynn Newspaper Co. and commercial printing sections at Rushden, King's Lynn and Bury St. Edmunds.
The magazine division was founded on a hunch when the company's printing presses lay dormant between printing issues of the local papers. The staff gambled that a weekly angling publication would be a hit - and in 1953 Angling Times was born.[1] This was soon joined by another weekly heavyweight when EMAP bought Motor Cycle News from its founder in 1956 for a hundred pounds.[1] It had been launched two years earlier. Both remain in the top 10 profit earners for the company (now Bauer) to this day. The Winfrey family continued to work on the management team of EMAP until the early 1980s and remained large shareholders until two thirds of the company were sold to Bauer Media Group in early 2008
EMAP eventually became a PLC in the late 1970s under the guidance of the extremely successful partnership of Sir Robin Miller and David Arculus.
In 1996 EMAP PLC agreed to sell its 65 newspaper titles, including the 300-year-old Stamford Mercury, to Johnston Press for £111 million.[2]
On 27 July 2007, Emap announced that it was undertaking a review of the structure of the group in response to receiving a number of unsolicited proposals to purchase parts of the company.[3]
On 12 September 2007, Emap announced that it had completed the disposal of its Australian consumer magazine division, Emap Australia for approximately £38m to ACP Magazines Ltd.[4]
On 29 January 2008, Emap PLC completed the sale of its radio, television and consumer media businesses to German company Bauer for £1.14bn.[5]
The remainder of the company was taken over by Eden Bidco Ltd, a company incorporated for the purpose of the acquisition by its owners, the Private Equity investment group Apax and the Guardian Media Group in late March/early April 2008.[6][7]
EMAP operated seven DAB multiplexes and also three jointly owned multiplexes with UTV. In addition, EMAP Radio owned 40 UK and Ireland local commercial radio stations. Following its purchase of Trans World Communications, it continued to buy radio stations, including 21 stations from Scottish Radio Holdings on 21 June 2005.
Twenty of its local contemporary music radio stations based across the north of the United Kingdom were marketed as the Big City Network.
In mid-2007, EMAP sold its Republic of Ireland radio interests to Denis O'Brien's Communicorp Group Limited (other than FM104, which was sold to Communicorp but acquired from Communicorp by UTV Media at the same time).
It has 20 magazines in its business-to-business portfolio including: Architects Journal, Architectural Review, Broadcast, Construction News, Drapers, Health Service Journal, Local Government Chronicle, Nursing Times, Retail Week, Recycling & Waste Management and Screen International.
EMAP Middle East comprises Middle East and North Africa (MENA) business-to-business companies AME Info and MEED.
EMAP ceased publishing many magazines in its history; there was in particular a move away from the computing genre during the mid-1990s. The following magazines were formerly published by EMAP: