Former Trinity Mirror and National World COO Mark Hollinshead has launched a new media company, kickstarted by two acquisitions.
Hero Media & Entertainment has acquired Dundee Press Agency Ltd and E News Now Ltd, which own newsbrands including ScottishNews.com, Scottish Financial News, Scottish Legal News, Irish Legal News, Scottish Construction Now and Scottish Housing News, as well as inaugural industry conference Scottish Construction Summit which is planned for September.
The portfolio is said to collectively reach more than 55,000 newsletter subscribers.
Graham Ogilvy, the former owner of the businesses, said he will stay with the group to take part in its “new and innovative next stage of development”.
Hollinshead said they plan to relaunch ScottishNews.com, currently billed as “for Scotland’s business community, as a wider newsbrand covering politics, business, sport, entertainment and popular culture.
HM&E has also acquired the assets of Daily Business Ltd, which owns business news and politics website and newsletter Daily Business, a business and politics site founded in 2014 by Terry Murden, a former business editor for The Scotsman and The Sunday Times in Scotland.
Murden said Daily Business had 105,848 page views last month and 82,678 unique users according to Google Analytics.
In a new role as group executive editor of business, finance and politics, Murden will work with the team at Scottish Financial News “to develop a new Scottish and UK wide business, finance and investment news platform”.
Hollinshead said: “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.”
The initial acquisitions mean the company has a team of around a dozen people.
HM&E said more acquisitions will follow and this was the start of a “buy, build and launch” strategy. Although the initial portfolio is made up of Scottish newsbrands, they are looking more widely.
Hollinshead told Press Gazette that although they have started with acquisitions in business, finance and live events, they are also targeting other verticals such as sport – and football in particular.
He noted there were no newspaper brands in the launch portfolio but said that was “not on purpose… should the opportunities arise, we’ll explore each one.”
The ultimate parent company of HM&E is Hero Brands Group, which also owns restaurant group German Doner Kebab and is controlled by Athif Sarwar, the brother of Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar.
Hollinshead, who is also an investor in the media group, worked in leadership roles at Trinity Mirror (now Reach) for 17 years until 2015, including as managing director of its Scottish titles and COO.
He was later COO of National World from 2019 until 2025 when the business was acquired by Malcolm Denmark’s Media Concierge.
Hollinshead told Press Gazette he had been “evaluating opportunities” since leaving National World and had “moved with some speed”.
The first major hire he brought in was Mike Hartley as chief revenue officer, who was national commercial director at National World and also left the business following its acquisition. He had also led strategic direction at National World’s B2B acquisition Insider Media.
Hollinshead said: “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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