B2B publisher Cirrus Media has quietly offloaded another of its assets yesterday, Medical Media, bringing the tally of disposal events since John King took over as CEO in July 2014 to six.
It has sold its Media and Travel group to the Misfits Media Company, Lawyers Weekly to Sterling Media, Hospitality Magazine and Directory to Intermedia, Hotfrog to Yodel, its whole industrial portfolio of magazines and directories, including Ferret, to Prime Creative Media, and now, Medical Media to a group called Medical Channel.
Notably the announcement from Medical Channel, mentioned nothing from Cirrus Media, and Cirrus itself has not gone public on the disposal.
The disposal signals a slight change in the Cirrus strategy of selling off non-core assets, as Medical Media is a key piece of its highly profitable healthcare division, a digital business unit which provided information live onto the screens in the back rooms of GP offices. Until now, Cirrus had been selling anything it could which didn’t seem core to what CEO John King has said are his key assets of Healthcare and Financial Services.
King did say in an interview recently however that”‘everything was for sale” at the right price.
Medical Media might have been the right price for Cirrus and just too tempting. Market rumours have the sale price to Medical Channel of between $1.5m and $2m. If that is true, then it is likely that Cirrus has made a reasonable return on Medical Media. Revenues of the business are believed to have only been in the realm of $500-$600k.
But it does beg the question, is Cirrus now prepared to sell off its crown jewel, its healthcare group, piecemeal, like the rest of the company?
For Medical Channel it may well have been worth it from a strategic point of view. This business has up to 800 screens complete with wifi infrastructure in the waiting rooms of GP surgeries already so the addition of 700 or so screens on the other side of the fence – inside GP tea rooms essentially – could be a powerful synergy for that business.
