9pm UPDATE: The search is continuing for a new owner for Press Gazette. The business formerly owned by Matthew Freud and Piers Morgan is now being run under administration by Robert Allen, of the accountancy firm Vantage. He is also seeking a possible buyer, though - given the fact that the magazine is losing as much as £15,000 a week - he cannot be expected to keep it going for long. He is an accountant after all.
According to a Press Gazette report today "a number of potential buyers are already understood to have expressed serious interest". Allen is quoted as saying: "Negotiations are ongoing with a number of organisations and I am hoping to progress quickly." Well, there may have been expressions of "interest", but two possibilities I mentioned three days ago are certainly non-runners now. Spokesmen for both Huveaux and Incisive Media say that they definitely have no interest in purchasing PG.
However, one of the magazine's former owners, Timothy Benn (whose eponymous company was subsumed into Incisive Media) is thought to be interested. He and his wife, Christina, made inquiries before the Freud-Morgan purchase, though they were then said to be shocked at the parlous state of recruitment advertising revenue. At the time of writing I have not yet reached the Benns - who have been in South Africa for two weeks - to confirm their current views. Their contacts with the administrator have been handled by a broker.
One other mooted buyer was the Dubai-based ITP, the Middle East's largest publisher of consumer and business magazines which is chaired by Andrew Neil. One of its directors (and its former chairman), Ken Jamieson, did pick up a prospectus but a spokesman in Dubai said tonight that it had "no solid intent" of buying the magazine. "We were just surprised that Press Gazette was available and we wanted to have a look at the sale terms", said the spokesman. In fairness, he didn't entirely rule out an offer, but he did make it sound unlikely
Aside from trade buyers, there is still the possibility of ownership by a newspaper industry consortium. On its behalf, Roger Eastoe, the former Mirror group managing director who now runs a media and marketing consultancy, is putting the finishing touches to a report. He is known to have put in an enormous amount of work but he will not comment on his report's contents, refusing even to confirm whether he has given it the thumbs up or down. One obvious problem has been the need to devise a legal structure for ownership by an industry-wide consortium.
There is clearly still a lot of goodwill towards the Press Gazette because Allen has praised "suppliers and contributors for their continuing support", particularly the magazine's printer Wyndham Grange.
