IPC paid £3m to keep senior executives after takeover

November 25, 2002

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IPC paid £3m to keep senior executives after takeover

LONDON – IPC Media is understood to have paid its senior management team £3m in bonuses to stay on after the UK consumer publishing company was taken over by AOL Time Warner in a £1.15bn deal in July last year.

Among the payouts to top IPC directors is a reported £1m to IPC Media chief executive Sly Bailey and finance director Bill Aley, according to a report in the Sunday Express.

The payments were made despite a raft of magazine closures and redundancies, which swiftly followed the AOL Time Warner takeover.

IPC laid off more than 220 staff and closed six magazines and its exhibition arm. Among the magazines closed were Woman's Journal; Marie Claire Health & Beauty; Your Garden; Homes & Ideas; Your Life and the Complete Guide to Pregnancy.

According to the report, as well as the large payments made to Bailey and Aley, as many as 20 smaller payments were made to other staff.

The report makes no mention of David Arculus, the chairman of IPC, who resigned from the company in the wake of its sale by venture capitalist firm Cinven to AOL.

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