WGSN owner to sell giant trends business to Apax

The next chapter in the life of leading fashion and beauty trends forecasting business WGSN is set to begin with news that it’s being sold to private equity giant Apax.

It’s part of parent company Ascential’s “managed separation” plan for its wider portfolio of businesses that was announced in January.

So, to the detail. Ascential will actually sell WGSN to Wind UK Bidco 3 Limited, a newly-formed company established by funds advised by Apax Partners LLP.

It’s being sold “for a total enterprise value of up to £700 million… [and] after customary closing adjustments (including in respect of approximately £61 million of deferred income), proceeds from Bidco are expected to be approximately £572 million payable on completion”.

Assuming shareholder and other approvals, it should all complete in Q1 next year.

Apax entered exclusive talks on the deal last month, although there had been earlier reports that it had lost interest in a deal.

But it clearly has a strong belief in the company having previously bought Emap (the publishing firm that later evolved into WGSN’s stock exchange-listed owner Ascential) after Emap had bought WGSN from its founders. 

Those founders — Julian Worth and the late Marc Worth — sold WGSN for around £140 million in 2005. They’d founded it seven years earlier at a time when online trend forecasting didn’t exist.

Launched originally as a fashion-only business, it has since expanded into other verticals such as beauty, interiors, food, consumer tech and more.