The Spectator composite image. Picture: OQS Media
The 15-month sale process of The Spectator resulted in total costs to the weekly news magazine of £11.4m.
The Spectator was bought by GB News investor and hedge fund manager Sir Paul Marshall via his company Old Queen Street Ventures Ltd in September 2024.
In the 2023 financial year, the sale process cost The Spectator £6.4m . New accounts on Companies House now show a further £5m cost in the year to 31 December 2024.
These costs included receivers, independent directors, bankers, lawyers, consultants and employee retention payments. They were paid by the prior owners before the OQS acquisition completed.
The sale meant The Spectator fell into the red following a pre-tax profit of £2.6m in 2022, its last full year of Barclay family ownership.
In 2024, The Spectator reported a pre-tax loss of £6.6m, slightly improved from a loss of £6.9m in 2023.
EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation) excluding exceptional items was a small loss of £0.2m following a profit of £1.2m in 2023.
Turnover was down 1.6% to £18.1m in 2024, attributed to the ongoing sale process having a “significant impact” on advertising and events. But circulation revenue was up 6.7% to £15m.
Subscribers were down in 2024 but “this was more than offset by an increase in the conversion of trial customers to fully paid subscribers”.
The business has now invested in its website, app and subscriptions platform and revenue growth is anticipated as a result.
Since the launch of in-house subs platform CoEditor in June 2025, subscribers have risen from 94,000 to 103,000.
[Read more: How The Spectator invested £1m in building own subs platform ]
The average number of Spectator employees was up in 2024 compared to the year before from 85 (40 editorial and 45 admin/sales) to 97 (47 editorial and 50 admin/sales).
Now-parent company OQS, which also owns Unherd, is not required to publish a profit/loss account and chose not to do so for its 2024 accounts .
OQS considered the fair value of the Spectator to total £105.8m, including £27.9m in total identifiable net assets and £77.9m in goodwill. It paid £100m in cash with a £5.8m loan from the acquired subsidiary to OQS.
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