Incisive Media co-founders Nick Rapley and James Hanbury are leaving the company as part of a management shakeup expected to lead to a breakup or sale of the business, TheMediaBriefing has learned from multiple sources.
Hanbury is group managing director, while Rapley is MD of Incisive’s Financial Services Division. The pair co-founded Incisive alongside CEO Tim Weller in 1994, with 13 staff and an investment of £275,000. The business now has more than 600 staff working on B2B publishing brands including Risk and Investment Week.
Incisive negotiated a debt-for-equity swap with a group creditors led by Royal Bank of Scotland after breaching debt covenants 2008 as debt grew to nine times EBITDA. That deal meant Apax took full control of Incisive’s US-based American Lawyer Media portfolio.
The covenants were agreed as part of Incisive’s $375 million (£246 million) takeover by Apax partners two years earlier.
As a result of the swap, lending banks owned 82.5 percent of the business – with RBS taking the bulk of them – but the banks aren’t in the business of running media companies.
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