Beckett Publications, Beckett.com, and Beckett Grading Services have been sold to Apprise Media, LLC and renamed Beckett Media LP.  Terms of the deal were not disclosed, although we saw one unconfirmed report that put the value at north of $20 million.

 

Apprise Media was formed last year by Charles G. McGurdy, a co-founder and former president of publishing giant Primedia.  Apprise raised $175 to $200 million from Spectrum Equity Investors with which to acquire targeted media and publishing businesses.  The Beckett acquisition is the first for Apprise. 

 

This sets up an interesting battle between Beckett and long-time competitor Krause Publications, which was acquired by F&W Publications in 2002.  F&W Publications is controlled by William F. Reilly, the other co-founder of Primedia who is using F&W to roll up his own collection of targeted publishing businesses.    

 

Apprise promptly installed Peter A.Gudmundsson as the new CEO, replacing company founder Dr. James Beckett who will remain with the company as an adviser.  Gudmundsson is another Primedia alumnus who did three years of m&a work for the company and also served as President and CFO of Primedia Workplace Learning.  More recently, Gudmundsson founded Design Guide Publishing Ltd., the Dallas-based publisher of Dallas-Fort Worth Design Guide, and served as President and CEO of Jobs.com.

 

McGurdy laid out his plans for Beckett.  'We plan to continue to improve the company's electronic information delivery platform and expand its focus on fee-based specialty services like grading/certification, while seeking new product and service segments,' he said. 

 

Online is going to be a focus.  'We see great opportunity to broaden Beckett's products and audience reach online as the sports and entertainment collectibles market continues to grow online through direct sales sites such as Beckett.com and auction sites such as eBay, already a strategic partner of Beckett,' McGurdy continued.

 

The sale did not include the Beckett Entertainment/Comics Division, which Dr. Beckett will continue to own and operate as a stand-alone entity.  Jeff Amano, president of the division, said of Beckett Comics going forward, 'It's really not going to change much in the way we operate.'

 

Beckett's Gene-Fusion A.D. 2310, its first original series, has been optioned for broadcast and is scheduled to go into production this fall.  Two new comic series are planned for 2005, in addition to a follow-up series of Fade from Grace.  In May, Beckett will launch Ronin Hood of the 47 Samurai, based on a historic Japanese event.