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SCMP Reporter

Reader's Digest Asia has bought Hong Kong-based financial publisher Benchmark for an undisclosed amount.

 It is the first purchase in the region for Reader's Digest Asia, which has a 37-year presence in the SAR and the Asia-Pacific publishing industry.

 Benchmark's core publication is Benchmark, a fund-management magazine.

 The deal is part of a re-focusing by US-based Reader's Digest Association, a traditionally conservative direct marketing and publishing group that has adopted a more expansionary strategy worldwide.

 Benchmark founder Gerry Ball said that after 3.5 years of being in business he had reached a crossroads and had to decide whether to expand or to sell out to a bigger player.

 Mr Ball said he chose the latter because it was less risky.

 'We have hit a bit of a ceiling, having grown the magazine's circulation by about 10 per cent a year,' he said.

 Benchmark has a circulation of about 21,000 copies per issue.

 'If we had not found a buyer then we were resigned to the fact that we would have to raise some capital from somewhere . . . but there is no guarantee that by borrowing money you are going to get it back.'  Part of the challenge for a small publisher in the field was the relatively low penetration rate of mutual funds across Asia, Mr Ball said.

 Reader's Digest Asia, which enjoys a circulation of more than 700,000 for its Reader's Digest magazines across the region, where it publishes in English, Chinese and Thai, is hoping to lift that figure.

 However, regional managing director Tony Rees would not forecast any expected circulation gains.

 'We see an opportunity to expand this distribution . . . using our direct-marketing capabilities to complement newsstand sales,' Mr Rees said.

 Reader's Digest Association has undergone an overhaul since the appointment of chief executive Tom Ryder in April last year.

 At that time, Mr Ryder identified five areas of interest, among them personal finance, in which the group was to seek publishing opportunities worldwide.

 Since then, the publishing group has acquired Moneywise, the largest selling personal-finance magazine in Britain.

 In June, it also made a US$100 million investment in US-based health Web site WebMD.

MEDIA 



Reader's Digest buys Benchmark in switch to expansion plan