HM&E buys Daily Business and Dundee Press Agency – Daily Business

Mark Hollinshead: ‘an exciting first set of acquisitions’ (pic: DB Media Services)

Daily Business has been sold to newly-created Hero Media & Entertainment (HM&E), which has also acquired Dundee Press Agency and E News Now as part of a buy, build and launch strategy to create a major Scotland-based player in the sector.

The transaction brings together a group of online news and information titles serving business and political news and specialist professional services, as well as live events.

Dundee Press Agency publishes Scottish Financial News, Scottish Legal News, Irish Legal News, Scottish Construction Now, Scottish Housing News and ScottishNews.com.

East Kilbride-based HM&E, part of the Hero Brands consumer and leisure group, is headed by Mark Hollinshead, a former executive at the Daily Record & Sunday Mail, and National World, which previously owned The Scotsman titles.

The acquisition also includes Scottish Construction Summit, a new industry conference  taking place at the Scottish Event Campus (SEC) in October 2026, bringing together leaders from Scotland’s construction, housing and infrastructure sectors.

The Dundee Press Agency’s portfolio collectively reaches a highly-engaged professional audience with more than 55,000 newsletter subscribers and over 105,000 professional followers on LinkedIn. The titles are also known for industry-leading newsletter open rates, reflecting their strong reputation for high-quality specialist journalism and sector insight.

Graham Ogilvy, former owner of Dundee Press Agency Ltd and E News Now Ltd, said: “Over the past two decades we’ve built our online brands into market leaders in their relevant sectors.

“Now is the time to hand on the baton to the Hero Media & Entertainment team to take our successful specialist news sites to a new and innovative next stage of development. I will be staying with the business to take part in that development.”

Daily Business is a seven-day business news and politics website & newsletter launched in 2014 by former Sunday Times and Scotsman business journalist Terry Murden who has won numerous awards for news, business and industrial reporting.

He will take on the new role of Group Executive Editor – Business, Finance, Politics and will work with the team at Scottish Financial News to develop a new Scottish and UK wide business, finance and investment news platform.

He said: “Building Daily Business has been a hugely satisfying experience and I am immensely grateful to all who have made it possible. I am looking forward to taking it forward under its new owner.”

Last month Daily Business had 105,848 page views and 82,678 unique users (google analytics). It has broken a number of major stories, including the Scottish Government’s decision to abandon plans for a publicly-owned energy company and the flotation of the retailer Quiz Clothing. Last year it forced KPMG to review its Venture Pulse research on venture capital deals following an investigation into what was claimed to be Scotland’s biggest deal of the year.

Daily Business’s story on the public energy company u-turn is still making headlines

HM&E’s strategy combines the acquisition of established online media brands, the expansion and scaling of existing platforms, and the launch of new digital media products serving both professional and consumer audiences.

It plans to expand video programming, digital news publishing and live events across the portfolio, while also developing ScottishNews.com into a major new national and international digital news platform covering politics, business,  sport, entertainment  and popular culture.

Further acquisitions and launches will be announced as the company continues to build its media portfolio.

Commenting on the acquisitions, Mr Hollinshead, chief executive of HM&E, said: “This is an exciting first set of acquisitions for Hero Media & Entertainment and an important step in our strategy to build a modern, digitally-focused, video-led, media company.

“The opportunity to re-launch Scottishnews.com as a new online news site for Scotland is a compelling one.

“The titles acquired have outstanding reputations within their sectors, loyal professional audiences and highly-engaged subscriber communities. 

“We see significant opportunities to build on this foundation by investing in quality journalism, video  content, new live events for each content category and expanded commercial partnerships.

“Simultaneously, harnessing the capabilities of AI to streamline workflows, source content and distribute stories to multiple platforms will support a content strategy built through the originality and uniqueness of our journalism.

“Our strategy at Hero Media & Entertainment is simple – recruit top talent, acquire great media brands, build their audiences and products and launch new platforms that serve valuable communities. This acquisition is the first step in that journey.

“I’m also very pleased to announce the appointment of Mike Hartley as Chief Revenue Officer of Hero Media & Entertainment Ltd.

“Mike and I have worked together for a number of years and his experience in the B2B publishing sector as MD of Insider Group, in national advertising development and digital trading will contribute greatly to the speedy execution of our plans.”

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