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Tony Morris, c.e.o. of The History Press, has asked agents, authors and suppliers to "judge us by our results", as the newly formed company seeks to turn around Alan Sutton's ailing NPI Media Group.
The new business was created on 18th December, after NPI was put into "pre-pack" administration, where a deal for sale is put in place prior to an administration order. Pre-pack sales are often to existing management or in cases where a company wants to avoid bad publicity by going insolvent. The move enabled NPI's private equity backers, Octopus Investments, to transfer all imprints, including Tempus and Sutton Publishing, to the new group.
Sutton has left the company, though he is understood to be weighing a bid for NPI's Gloucestershire printing business, which was not transferred to The History Press.
Morris admitted that with NPI's assets in administration, The History Press was not legally obliged to honour any outstanding contracts. But he reiterated a desire to assure authors, saying that royalty cheques were going out “in a systematic fashion”. He added: "We believe in our authors. We have plans for digital expansion where content is king. So we want them to be unequivocally happy."
But some agents and authors were concerned that outstanding royalties would not be paid. Meg Davies, who represents Sutton author Paul Heiney, said the situation was "still a mess". She added: "We had the press release about the new company. A royalty cheque would have been better, and it would have been quicker to write." Agent Andrew Lownie, who has 11 authors with The History Press, said: "I’m still very concerned [and] I would still like to see a full audit of their books."
One supplier said he was adopting a "wait and see approach" to whether outstanding debts totalling "some thousands" would ever be paid. He added: "I'm not sure about the new set-up. It seems that it's all the same people, they just took Alan Sutton out of the equation."