Wine Int, Wine & Spirit Int and DI all move to William Reed

Published: 23 July, 2008

William Reed Publishing, the Crawley-based publisher of The Grocer, Morning Advertiser and Off Licence News, has bought Wine International, Wine & Spirit International, Drinks International, the duty-free title Frontier, and the Intenational Wine Challenge.

Staff were told last week shortly after the IWC dinner, and the deal was expected to go through last Monday (12 September), and to be announced formally yesterday.

At the time of going to press, the purchase price had not

been disclosed, although Wilmington was due to reports its result this week. It has also not been confirmed whether staff will be relocated from Old Street in London to Wm Reed's base in Broadfield Park outside Crawley in West Sussex, near junction 11 of the M23. Restaurant Magazine, which Wm Reed recently acquired, has a small office in Regent Street.

Staff are believed to number: 17 editorial, four designers,

13 sales, and two on the IWC, excluding Robert Joseph and Charles Metcalfe.

William Reed is a long-established business-to-business publisher (The Grocer was founded in 1862). Wine International as a consumertitle with a circulation of 35,000, will be a departure from its core business (as it was within Wilmington) and that is grounds for concern among its staff.

For the IWC, it is a case of moving from one trade publishing house to another, and one insider told Harpers that they could see no obvious negatives' with the deal.

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