Speculation mounts over sale of customer mag publisher Forward

Customer magazine publisher Forward Publishing is understood to be looking for a buyer.

Stock market sources say the company’s owners have approached potential buyers and are seeking over 10m for it.

Clients include Tesco, Marks & Spencer and the RAC.

The company, half owned by Maurice Saatchi’s media investment company Megalomedia, is run by chief executive Neil Mendoza, who, along with chairman William Sieghart, owns the remaining 50 per cent of the company.

Forward made 1.2m in pre-tax profits in the year ending March 31 1995, dipping to about 500,000 on a turnover of 6.1m in 1996. The firm is thought to have bounced back to register a profit of about 1m for the financial year just ended, boosted by a co-venture with Condé Nast Publications.

Improving profit streams from Forward Publishing and Megalomedia’s two other established businesses, Graduate Recruitment and digital effects company FrameStore, helped the company raise 5m in a placing handled by Robert Fleming last June.

However, Christopher Parker, chief executive of Megalomedia, and Mendoza deny that approaches have been made. “We haven’t got anything up for sale,” says Mendoza.