Ex-Daily Mail chief is Ascential to buyout agency’s WGSN bid

A former chief govt of the Daily Mail’s guardian firm has been enlisted to advise a personal fairness bidder for the patron knowledge supplier WGSN.

Sky News has learnt that Paul Zwillenberg, who stepped down as CEO of Daily Mail & General Trust final autumn, is working with the buyout agency on its curiosity within the enterprise, which is owned by the FTSE-250 media group Ascential.

Mr Zwillenberg is working alongside Elizabeth Deeming, a former govt at Stylus Media Group and News Corporation, on the deal.

City sources mentioned Ascential had requested for preliminary gives for WGSN, which provides knowledge on style tendencies to the trade, this week.

The enterprise is known to be valued at greater than £700m, with Apax Partners, one other buyout agency, among the many rival bidders to BC Partners.

Neither Mr Zwillenberg nor Ms Deeming is anticipated to have an ongoing function within the WGSN enterprise if BC’s bid is profitable, based on folks near the state of affairs.

Nevertheless, his involvement as an adviser is intriguing given his distinguished function in steering the Daily Mail’s writer by means of its delisting from the London inventory market in 2021.

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Under Mr Zwillenberg, who ran DMGT for six years, it diversified into a spread of digital ventures together with the web car-buying platform Cazoo.

During his tenure, the corporate generated eye-catching returns to shareholders, and he stays an adviser to it.

BC Partners declined to remark, whereas Mr Zwillenberg couldn’t be reached for remark.