Money and personal finance magazines

Aceville Publications

What Franchise is a free magazine sent to people interested in buying a franchise and starting their own business. The quarterly carries a listings section with details of franchise offers.

Ashville Media Group Back to top

The Investor, which claimed to be Ireland's only magazine for the private investor, was published 10 times a year. The website says it is being 'reconstructed' and the company is focusing on customer magazines.

BBC Worldwide Ltd

In September 2005, launched How to be Better Off, a £3 one-shot personal finance magazine, with FT Business (below). It featured content from TV and radio shows such as Money Box, You and Yours and Working Lunch. The editorial strategy was to sell to 'readers who are interested in personal financial management but find current sources of advice in the market daunting'.

The website stated:

'BBC Magazines and Financial Times Business magazines have joined forces to produce How to be Better Off. Combining the consumer affairs expertise of major BBC television, radio and internet brands with the financial acumen of FT Business, How To Be Better Off aims to target readers who are interested in personal financial management but find current sources of advice in the market daunting. Flagship BBC shows such as Moneybox, You and Yours and Working Lunch all feature strongly in the new magazine, as do contributions by experts including Adrian Chiles, Declan Curry, Paul Lewis and Liz Barclay.

BBC Worldwide profile

Charterhouse Back to top

Charterhouse specialised in investment and financial magazines, books and websites with mortgage and wealth management divisions, but suspended trading in its shares in February 2008 and in April went into administration. Its consumer monthly since 1982 What Mortgage magazine for prospective house purchasers, borrowers transferring between lenders or types of mortgage, and financial intermediaries was sold to Metropolis International Group.

Cobweb Information

Cobweb publishes information for business start-ups, small business owners and their advisers. Better Business magazine a subscription title published every two months. It was launched in 1992 by Sophie Chalmers and Andrew James at Active Information, which sold Better Business to in September 2007

The Economist Newspaper Ltd

The Economist was founded in 1843. It is an international magazine of economics and politics rather than personal finance. The Economist has always been called a newspaper though its format is that of a weekly magazine. Since 1928, it has been half owned by the Financial Times Group (Pearson profile); the other shares are held by independent shareholders. The editor's independence is guaranteed by a board of trustees. To mark its first 150 years, it carried an article by Ruth Dudley Edwards* . This began: 'The main virtues of today's Economist - reverence for facts and figures, integrity, consistency of principle, rational analysis and absolute clarity - were already visible under the editorship (1843-57) of its founder, James Wilson, a Scottish hat-manufacturer. So too were the main defects: arrogance, priggishness, absence of doubt, frequent failures of imagination and too-clever-by-halfery.' Contact:
*The Pursuit of Reason: The Economist 1843-1993 by Ruth Dudley Edwards is published by Hamish Hamilton (1993) and Harvard Business School Press (1995)

FT Business Back to top

FT Business is the specialist publishing arm of Financial Times Group, which is owned by Pearson (profile). It publishes 14 titles, including:

• Investors Chronicle a personal investing weekly. Most of the website can only be accessed by subscribers. Investors Chronicle also runs events.
• Three titles for retail investors, such as Financial Adviser.
• The Banker, Foreign Direct Investment and other titles for institutional investors.
• In September 2005, launched How to be Better Off, a one-off magazine, with BBC Worldwide. This featured personal finance and investing based on TV and radio shows such as Money Box, You and Yours and Working Lunch.

Guardian Magazines

The Guardian gained control of Money Observer, which was founded in 1979, when it took over the Sunday Observer newspaper in 1993. It sold the title to Moneywise in February 2008.
Guardian profile

Incisive Media Back to top

Your Mortgage was founded in 1986 as a monthly magazine for mortgage borrowers. Website includes news, mortgage calculators and best buy tables.
Incisive profile

Market Publishing

The Market is a consumer magazine published 10 times a year covering investment, business, property and finance. It was launched in October 2010 with financial backing from James Caan, one of the investors who came to public attention in BBC TV's Dragons’ Den series. The Market has a print-run of 40,000 copies, most distributed through newsagents and 5,000 through controlled circulation by post to entrepreneurs and business people

Metropolis International To top

Publishes about 25 business and consumer titles, including:

• What Mortgage 'the UK’s market leading consumer mortgage magazine', bought from the collapse of Charterhouse in 2008.
• Mortgage Finance Gazette, a monthly that dates backs to 1869.

MoneyWeek Ltd

Among the facts MoneyWeek - 'the best selling financial magazine' - quotes to advertisers are that 20% of readers are company directors, and that the mean value of investments is £715,000. MoneyWeek also sends out Money Morning, a free daily investment email.

Moneywise Publishing Ltd top

Moneywise claimss to be the 'biggest-selling personal finance magazine' in the UK. The website (December 2005) quotes an ABC figure of 60,035, but this dates back to 2003, as does the NRS readership figure of 182,000. It gives data on products its readers buy:

In February 2008, Moneywise Publishing bought personal finance monthly Money Observer from Guardian Media Group. The deal came a month after GMG combined with private equity group Apax Partners to buy the trade magazines arm of Emap. The website carries stories from Money Observer, a free weeky newsletter of investment tips and news about personal finance.

Moneywise was bought by Capital Accumulation from the UK arm of Reader's Digest Association in October 2004. Capital Accumulation also owns investment website Interactive Investor.

MSM Magazines

Shares was launched in 1999 and aims at analysts, fund managers, stockbrokers, company directors and private investors. It comes out on every Thursday. About a third of the 15,000+ circulation is through newsagents and subscriptions. The rest is controlled circulation on airlines and the offices of banks, financial groups and the Financial Times. Subscribers gain free access to the web edition, app and digital edition, and sister website, MoneyAM, where live data and share prices are available.

Other MSM websites include:

• Money AM for private investors;
• Directors Holdings; and
• Mining and Resources Quarterly.

Seven Publishing Ltd Back to top

Who Wants to be a Millionaire was launched in October 2005 by Seven Publishing but has since closed. It was published under licence from Celador, who make the TV series of the same name. Seven's main title is the food monthly Delicious.
Seven profile

Spear Publishing

Spear's is a 'wealth management and luxury lifestyle media brand whose flagship magazine has become a must-read for the ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) community'. Spear's, which sports a cover price of £25, is sent four times a year to 30,000 rich people.

The company was started in 2006 as Spear's Media, a contract publisher, by journalist William Cash. It published Spear’s Wealth Management Survey, a quarterly sent to 25,000 wealthy people and families across Europe, and Annabel's, for the London night club. The titles aimed for the 'super rich' and 'high net worth individuals'. The company was sold to upmarket customer publisher Luxury Publishing - which produced Quintessentially for the personal concierge company - in 2007. A Russian edition of Spear's was launched in 2008. In August 2009, Cash and private equity firm Nectar Capital bought back control of Spear’s and Luxury went into administration a month later.

Your Trading Edge Back to top

Your Trading Edge magazine is published by 21st Century Media, and before that Your Media Edge Pty, a subsidiary of Australian technology group Infostream. YTE has been published every two months since 1997 for traders and investors covering trading strategies for contracts for difference, stocks, options, futures, forex and commodities. It is distributed in Australia, the UK, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and the US.

Money and personal finance titles (2012) Back to top

Investors Chronicle (weekly)

FT Business

Market Publishing

Moneywise/Guardian Magazines