Heart Media Group acquired by new luxury media holding company

Singapore-based publisher Heart Media Group, which publishes magazines including Men’s Folio, FORM and World of Watches, has been acquired.

The acquirer is a new media holding group called Heart Media Holding, led by Olivier Burlot and Julian Peh.

Burlot previously launched car and women’s titles for Hachette Filipacchi in China, headed the Taiwan edition of ELLE and co-founded Adkom Media Group in 2001, which was later sold to SPH. He will run the new group as CEO and publisher.

Peh is group CEO and founder of WhiteWave Media Group, a separate luxury media company.

Peh told Marketing the new owners now had full ownership of Heart Media Group’s business, while founder Eddy Koh would retain a minority stake in the company. The deal was completed yesterday, he added.

Heart Media Holding will take over Heart Media’s entire business, including its Malaysian and Indonesian entities. The group’s stable of magazines includes World of Watches, Men’s Folio, FORM in Singapore and ROOM in Malaysia, as well as its digital properties.

The titles are published and circulated in Singapore, Malaysia and major cities across Asia.

More editions of the titles will be added across the region over the next 24 months, according to a statement from the new company.

“Heart Media is a trusted and long-established brand in the luxury media market. Over the past 16 years, Eddy Koh and his team have built magazine titles which are read and loved by some of the most sophisticated readers in Asia,” Burlot said.

WhiteWave Media will become a strategic partner to the new company, Peh said. WhiteWave specialises in digital luxury media and owns websites including Luxury-Insider.com. It also acquired regional news publication Asia360 last year.

As a result of the partnership, the new company will push Heart Media Group’s publications further into web and mobile, Peh added.

“I am thrilled to see the company being brought to new heights. The new management team will definitely create exciting and excellent growth for the titles and let us offer even more to our readers, advertisers and business partners,” said Koh.