Remnant aims to float adult titles

THE company that last week paid almost £20m for Express Newspaper publisher Richard Desmond's adult magazines is planning a share float on the Alternative Investment Market.

Remnant Media is believed to have appointed stockbroker Hoodless Brennan to raise £1.5m in new equity and is expected to be valued at £25m when it floats. It will be the first time that a company involved in pornography has been listed on the London Stock Exchange.

Remnant is led by Simon Robinson, a former executive at newspaper publisher Trinity Mirror and a former Sunday Express financial journalist. He ran the Mirror operations in Ireland and was close to the then Mirror boss David Montgomery. Robinson has advised Desmond on possible takeovers in the past.

Robinson aims to exploit the company's library of 100,000 images in new markets such as Japan.

Three porn companies are already listed in Franfurt where they trade on multiples of 20 times their earnings.

However, attempts by pornography outfit Private Media Group to launch on Aim last year were scrapped when the company could not find a broker prepared to handle the float.