Centaur's strategy is to establish and market high quality weekly publications focused on distinct business communities, attracting a committed base of readers and advertisers. Centaur builds on this established reader and advertiser base by adding monthly magazines and directories and organising exhibitions, awards and conferences. Online products complete Centaur's integrated offering.
Typically Centaur seeks out new markets, or niches within markets, with growth potential, high value and limited competition. In creating products that meet the needs of its markets, it has sought first to define the audience that advertisers wish to meet. Then it identifies the information needs of that audience. Finally it ensures the maintenance of the highest standards of editorial integrity. This strategy reflects the fact that, whilst Centaur only creates products that advertisers want, having done so, it positions itself primarily as being in the readership business and thereby is successful in establishing market-leading brands.
As the information needs of these communities drive the content development of the weeklies, they also reveal further opportunities to supply information and services in other ways. The second element of Centaur's strategy is therefore to extend its trusted community brands into other product offerings. The most important of these extensions are conferences, exhibitions and Internet services.
This strategy of building on existing brand strength is best illustrated by the example of Marketing Week. The "subsidiary" products built up around the market-leading weekly title include specialist titles such as Precision Marketing and In-Store, conferences, newsletters, directories, awards ceremonies and the online portal, mad.co.uk. This strategy is being successfully deployed across all of Centaur's main communities.
Management's experience has demonstrated that it is only market-leading brands that consistently attract the high quality audience that are able to command premium advertising rates and avoid heavy discounting.
Description of Business and Culture
Centaur is a federation of small businesses. Its focus on selected business communities is reflected in its community-based organisation. Apart from the Exhibitions and Conferences divisions, all other products constitute discrete profit centres grouped by business community under the leadership of a Group Publisher. The Exhibitions and Conferences divisions' primary objective is to develop profitable extensions of the magazine brands. Centaur's culture is entrepreneurial, innovative and customer-focussed.
The business comprises essentially 18 main profit centres, the largest of which employs no more than 45 staff. The publishers and other profit centre heads all demonstrate an advanced level of skill in selling, buying, promotion and research. They and their teams have a marked sense of identity with, and ownership of, their respective businesses. The profit centre organisation recognises that there are certain activities and resource requirements that are common to all the business units, which benefit from economies of scale.
Accordingly Centaur operates an efficient central service infrastructure comprising accounting, IT support, circulation fulfillment and marketing, HR, art and various legal, administrative, risk management and property services.
The central service teams deliver to the profit centres the most cost-effective and appropriate infrastructure and services, so that profit margins and revenue growth potential are optimised. They also ensure that the Company can absorb growth with minimal additional cost, so that future internal profitability can be enhanced and additional value can be created from acquisitions and organic growth.
Launches and Acquisitions
Centaur's strategy is principally one of organic growth. The Company looks for opportunities or angles that others have not identified, in which the information and communications needs of the communities which it serves can be met by new products and services developed from existing titles. This awareness creates organic growth at low risk within known markets. The following table sets out the historical milestones for the company in terms of both launches and acquisitions.
1982
• Centaur founded. Marketing Week and Creative Review acquired and Marketing Week Conferences launched
1983
• Televisual launched
1985
• Money Marketing launched
1986
• Design Week launched
1987
• The Lawyer acquired (soon after launch), and Hali acquired.
1988
• Precision Marketing launched
1991
• Ascent acquired (Construction Community)
1993
• Centaur Exhibitions launched
1994
• Perfect Information stake acquired (now 99.99%)
1995
• New Media Age launched
1996
• PFI Report launched (now publicprivatefinance)
1997
• Employee Benefits and In-Store launched. IFA Events acquired (first 51%)
1999
• Engineering portfolio acquired (6 publications and 4 exhibitions). mad.co.uk, Money Marketing Online and TheLawyer.com launched.
2000
• Fund Strategy and e4engineering.com (Now The Engineer Online) launched.
2001
• nma.co.uk, Mortgage Strategy and Lawyer2B launched.
2002
• Lawtel divested, Headline Money launched and IFA Events acquired (100% acquisition completed)
2003
• Synergy acquired by Perfect Information and Property Finder France launched
2004
• Data Strategy and Finance Week launched.
2005
• Logistics Manager magazine, Logistics Link exhibitions and Logistics Europe mgazine acquired. Recruiter magazine acquired. Move or Improve? and Modern Carpets & Textiles launched.
2006
• Period Living, Headlinemoney (outstanding 50%), ABTN and Pro-Talk acquired. Lending Strategy, Corporate Adviser, MarketingWeek.co.uk, PrecisionMarketing.co.uk, DesignWeek.co.uk launched. Televisual sold to its publisher.
2007
• Mortgage Distributor, CreativeReview.co.uk, Headlineproperty and Headlineauto launched. Awareness Group acquired. JV companies formed with YouGov on market research and Dnata for exhibitions in the Middle East.
