Northern & Shell is a British publishing and television group. The holding company name is "Northern and Shell Network Ltd". Launched and founded in December 1974 and currently owned by Richard Desmond, it publishes the Daily Express, Sunday Express, Daily Star and Daily Star Sunday, and the magazines OK!, New!, and Star. Northern & Shell also owns three entertainment television channels: Channel 5, 5* and 5USA. The company also owns Portland TV,^[1] which owns the adult TV channels; Television X, Red Hot TV, and others.

History[link]

Desmond founded Northern and Shell in 1974 and launched a magazine called International Musician and Recording World. In 1983, Northern and Shell obtained the licence to publish Penthouse in the United Kingdom which led to its publishing a range of adult titles,^[2] Asian Babes among them.^[3][4] These titles were later sold in 2004. It was the first company to move to the revamped Docklands and the Princess Royal opened the offices. When the company moved to the Northern & Shell Tower Prince Philip did the honours.

In November 2000 Northern & Shell acquired Express Newspapers from United News & Media for £125m,^[5] enlarging the group to include the Daily and Sunday Express titles, the Daily Star and Daily Star Sunday (which Desmond started), and the Irish Star (owned jointly with the Irish Independent group). The Daily and Sunday Express each sell around 700,000 copies per issue.^[6]

Northern & Shell also publishes a wide range of magazines including the celebrity weekly, OK!, started as a monthly in 1993, which is the largest weekly magazine in the world with a readership in excess of 31 million^{[citation needed]}.

On 23 July 2010, Northern & Shell bought Channel 5, 5* and 5USA for €125 million (£103.5 million) from the RTL Group.^[7]

References[link]

1. ^ http://www.portlandtv.co.uk/aboutus.html
2. ^ "About Northern & Shell". Northern and Shell. N&S Network. http://www.northernandshell.com/about/index.php. Retrieved 2006-12-22. 
3. ^ Jane Arthurs, Jean Grimshaw, "Women's bodies: discipline and transgression", Continuum International Publishing Group, 1999, ISBN 0-304-33963-6, pp.191-192
4. ^ Clarissa Smith, "One for the girls!: the pleasures and practices of reading women's porn", European Communication Research and Education Association Series, Intellect Books, 2007, ISBN 1-84150-164-6, p.57
5. ^ Jorn Madslien (12 February 2006). "Profile: Richard Desmond". BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3479581.stm. 
6. ^ "ABC Circulation Figures". Audit Bureau of Circulations. http://www.abc.org.uk. Retrieved 2009-02-04.  (December 2008)
7. ^ "RTL Group sells UK broadcaster Five" (Press release). RTL Group. 23 July 2010. http://www.rtlgroup.com/www/htm/home_news.aspx?ID=C57D4206AF294A979A24C3EE4270E175. Retrieved 24 July 2010. 

External links[link]

• Northern & Shell company website
• Channel 5
• Daily and Sunday Express
• Daily Star and Daily Star Sunday
• OK! Magazine
• OK! USA
• new! Magazine
• Star Magazine
• Tripideas: The Express Newspapers Travel website
• Daily Express Property website
• Daily Express Franchising website
• Portland TV

v t e Northern & Shell Publications Current Daily Express, Sunday Express · Daily Star, Daily Star Sunday · OK! · Star · New! Former Asian Babes · International Musician and Recording World Television assets Channel 5 Broadcasting (Channel 5 · 5* · 5USA) · Television X · redhot · GAYtv People Richard Desmond Category

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Richard Clive Desmond
Born	Richard Clive Desmond 8 December 1951 (1951-12-08) (age 60)[1] London, England, United Kingdom
Residence	Golders Green, Greater London, England
Nationality	British
Ethnicity	Jewish
Occupation	Publisher/Businessman
Years active	1972–present
Net worth	£950 million (US$1.53 billion[2])
Television	Television X (1995–present) Red Hot TV (2000–present) Channel 5 (UK) (2010–present)
Title	Owner of Northern & Shell
Term	1974–present (Northern & Shell)
Spouse	Janet Desmond (m. 1983–2010) «start: (1983)–end+1: (2011)»"Marriage: Janet Desmond to Richard Desmond" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Richard_Desmond) (divorced) Joy Canfield (Fiancée)
Website
Northern & Shell's Official site

Richard Clive Desmond (born 8 December 1951) is an English publisher and businessman. He is the owner of Express Newspapers and founder in 1974 of Northern & Shell, which publishes various celebrity magazines, such as OK! and New!, and British national newspapers Daily Star and Daily Express. Northern & Shell also owns British television network Channel 5 as well as Portland TV^[3] which, in turn, owns the adult TV channels Television X, Red Hot TV, and others.

In 2010, Desmond was ranked the equal-57th richest man in Britain according to the Sunday Times Rich List,^[4] with a net worth of £950 million. He was once again listed on the 2011 Sunday Times Rich List, with his fortune still at £950 million.

Early life[link]

Desmond was born in North London into a Jewish family, the youngest of three children.^[5][6] His father, Cyril, was at one time managing director of cinema advertising company Pearl & Dean. An ear infection caused the sudden loss of Cyril Desmond's hearing and, according to Richard, he used to take him along, when he was no more than three years old, to act as "his ears" in business meetings, where he ostensibly acquired his "first taste of business dealings".^[7] After Cyril lost a significant amount of family money to gambling, his parents divorced^[8] and 11-year old Desmond moved with his mother into a flat above a garage; he has described his impoverished early adolescence as a time when he was "very fat and very lonely".^[8]

Business career[link]

Desmond left school at 15 and started working in the classified advertisements section of the Thomson Group, while playing the drums at night. After moving to another company, and on the basis of his music interests, he opened a record shop.

Desmond founded Northern and Shell in 1974, and combining his interest in music and advertising, joined Ray Hammond in co-ownership of the latter's International Musician and Recording World monthly magazine. This was followed by the publication of Home Organist, whose editor contributed the old-school motto Forti Nihil Difficile ("Nothing is difficult for the strong" - it was Disraeli's motto), still used by the Northern & Shell publishing group. Desmond eventually bought out Hammond, who moved on to writing books as a futurologist.

In 1983, Northern & Shell obtained the licence to publish Penthouse in the United Kingdom. The company soon moved on to publishing a range of adult titles, including Asian Babes, alongside about 40 other specialist publications, on subjects such as bicycles, fitness, stamps, cars and cooking. It was the first company to move to the revamped Docklands and the Princess Royal opened the offices. When the company moved to the Northern & Shell Tower, the Duke of Edinburgh presided over the ceremonial.

In November 2000, Northern & Shell acquired Express Newspapers from United News & Media for £125m,^[9] enlarging the group to include the Daily and Sunday Express titles, the Daily Star and Daily Star Sunday (which Desmond started), and the Irish Daily Star (owned jointly with the Irish Independent News & Media group). The Daily and Sunday Express each sell around 700,000 copies per issue.^[10] The Daily Star is currently the only national paper to put on sales year on year with an 18% increase (September 2008 – September 2009) and circulation figures of around 850,000,^[11] largely due to aggressive pricing policies which significantly undercut competitors such as The Sun.

Northern & Shell also publishes a wide range of magazines including the celebrity weekly OK!, started as a monthly in 1993, which is the largest weekly magazine in the world, with 23 separate editions from the US to Australia to Azerbaijan and with a readership in excess of 31million.

After buying Express Newspapers, Desmond became embroiled in a feud with Viscount Rothermere, publisher of the Daily Mail, the rival to the Daily Express, largely derived from stories relating to Rothermere's private life.

In February 2004, in a move that some newspapers interpreted^[12] as an attempt to clear and bolster his image^[13][14] in view of his bid for the Daily Telegraph, Desmond sold the adult magazine business to Remnant Media for approximately £10m.^[15]

In April 2004, the Daily Express reverted to supporting the Conservatives, after a period backing Labour. On the same day Desmond accused The Daily Telegraph, then considering accepting a takeover by the German Axel Springer group, of giving in to Nazis.^[16] Desmond reportedly harangued The Daily Telegraph's chief executive and associates in faux German at a business meeting and imitated Adolf Hitler.^[17]

In 2005, The Guardian reported that Desmond became unwittingly caught up in a pornographic telephone and internet scam which allegedly led to him receiving death threats from the New York Gambino mafia family, according to documents released during a court case.^[18] Desmond has denied the whole episode.

In 2008, Northern & Shell reported a turnover of £483.9m.^[19] Since the time of its inception, the small, privately-owned publishing venture has become one of Britain's leading independent publishing businesses, with annual revenues close to £500m and more than 2,000 people employed. The group has offices in London, Broughton, Glasgow, and Dublin, and in New York and Los Angeles. They also have offices in Sydney, Australia, and Hamburg, Germany, for their partnerships in these countries.

On 23 July 2010, Desmond bought the UK terrestrial-television channel Channel 5, which was losing money, from the German group RTL, for £103.5million.^[20][21][22] The new owner immediately proceeded to cut costs, starting with the dismissal of seven out of Channel 5's nine directors, beginning a drive to eliminate "£20m of yearly expenses". The stated plan includes the dismissal of up to another 80 of the network's 300 employees.^[23]

Charity work[link]

In 2003, Desmond and Roger Daltrey formed the RD Crusaders, a rock group featuring Desmond on drums, in order to raise money for charitable causes. Since its inception, the group has raised around £14m via a series of fundraising concerts for charities including Marie Curie, The Teenage Cancer Trust, Norwood Child Care and the Evelina Children’s Hospital. As well as Daltrey and Desmond, the lineup occasionally includes Robert Plant, Lulu, Steve Harley, guitarists Russ Ballard (of Argent) and Rick Wills (of Foreigner and Bad Company), keyboardist Steve Smith and organist Zoot Money.

Desmond, an active supporter of children’s charities, became president of the Norwood Charity in 2006.

He also financed the construction of the Richard Desmond Children’s Eye Centre, in Moorfields Eye Hospital, the world’s largest specialist paediatric eye clinic, a centre treating more than 25,000 children a year.^[24] The Centre was officially inaugurated in 2007 by Queen Elizabeth II.

Libel case[link]

Litigation began at the High Court on 6 July 2009 over claims in journalist Tom Bower's biography Conrad and Lady Black: Dancing on the Edge that Desmond had made a "humiliating climbdown" over an Express story at the end of 2002 on the state of Lord Black's finances, which it was alleged Desmond had ordered to be written.

This claim of a weakening of Desmond's "super-tough" reputation as a businessman was viewed as defamation by Desmond. Bower denied libel on the grounds of the story being "substantially true".^[25] The following day, the presiding judge The Hon. Mr Justice Eady, discharged the jury as "fundamental" evidence and legal submissions had emerged.^[26] The new jury later found in favour of Bower.^[27]

Private life[link]

Richard and Janet Desmond were married for 27 years; the couple had a son, Robert.^[17] In October 2010^[28] Janet filed for divorce on the grounds of his "unreasonable behaviour" and was granted a decree nisi from the court."^[29]

Richard Desmond is engaged to Joy Canfield. The couple had their first child, daughter Angel Millie, in the spring of 2011.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Northern & Shell company website
• Richard Desmond collected news and commentary at The Guardian

v t e Northern & Shell Publications Current Daily Express, Sunday Express · Daily Star, Daily Star Sunday · OK! · Star · New! Former Asian Babes · International Musician and Recording World Television assets Channel 5 Broadcasting (Channel 5 · 5* · 5USA) · Television X · redhot · GAYtv People Richard Desmond Category

A house for sale in London

An estate agent is a person or business that arranges the selling, renting or management of properties, and other buildings, in the United Kingdom and Ireland. An agent that specialises in renting is often called a letting or management agent. Estate agents are mainly engaged in the marketing of property available for sale and a solicitor or licensed conveyancer is used to prepare the legal documents. In Scotland, however, many solicitors also act as estate agents, a practice that is rare in England and Wales.

It is customary in the United Kingdom and in Ireland to refer to real estate or real property simply as property.

The estate agent remains the current title for the person responsible for the management of one group of privately owned, all or mostly tenanted, properties under one ownership. Alternative titles are Factor, Steward or Bailiff depending on the era, the region and the extent of the property concerned.

Origin[link]

The term originally referred to a person responsible for managing a landed estate, while those engaged in the buying and selling of homes were "House Agents", and those selling land were "Land Agents". However, in the 20th century, "Estate Agent" started to be used as a generic term, perhaps because it was thought to sound more impressive. Estate agent is roughly synonymous in the United States with the term real estate broker.

The job of the agent is to know his or her community and local factors that can increase or decrease property prices. e.g. if a new road or airport is to be built this can blight houses nearby. Equally, the closing of a quarry or improvement of an area can enhance prices. It is the job of the agent to value based on what has, or has not sold in comparison and to achieve the best price for their client.

Regulation[link]

The full legal term and definition of an estate agent within the UK can be found on the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) website. Enforcement of these regulations is also the responsibility of the OFT.

In the United Kingdom, residential estate agents are regulated by the Estate Agents Act 1979 and the Property Misdescriptions Act 1991, as well as, the more recently enacted Consumers, Estate Agents and Redress Act 2007.^[1]

For residential property, there is a trade association for estate agents, the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA). NAEA members can be disciplined for breaches of their code of conduct.^[2] Their disciplinary process includes everything from cautions and warnings right through to more severe penalties of up to £5,000 for each rule breached.^[3]

Some estate agents are members of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), the principal body for UK property professionals, dealing with both residential, commercial and agricultural property. Members, known as "Chartered Surveyors", are elected based on examination and are required to adhere to a code of conduct, which includes regulations about looking after their clients' money and professional indemnity insurance in case of error or negligence.

The Ombudsman for Estate Agents Scheme,^[4] which obtained OFT approval for the Code of Practice for Residential Sales in and, as of November 2006 claims to have 2,532 member agencies.

There is a legal requirement to belong to either organisation to trade as an estate agent. Agents can be fined if they are not a member of a redress scheme. The redress scheme was brought in alongside and to govern agents in reference to the HIP (Home Information Pack).

Industrial structure[link]

A handful of national residential estate agents chains exist, such as Connells, with the majority being locally or regionally specialised companies.

Several multi-national commercial agencies exist, typically being Anglo-American, pan-European or global. These firms all seek to provide the full range of property advisory services, not just agency.

Only a handful of large firms trade in both commercial and residential property.

Fees[link]

Lettings[link]

Estate agents who handle lettings of commercial property normally charge between 7–10% of the first year's rent as fees, in addition to taking the first month's rent in its entirety. If two agents are charging 10%, they will split the fee between them. Estate agents selling commercial property (known as investment agents) typical charge 1% of the sale price.

The fees charged by residential letting agents vary, depending on whether the agent manages the property or simply arranges for new tenants. Charges to prospective tenants can vary from zero to £300 in non-refundable fees usually described as "Application", "Administration" or "Processing" fees (or all three). There are no guidelines for letting agents on charges, except that they are forbidden by law to charge a fee for a list of properties. Otherwise, they are free to charge as they please.

The first month's rent in advance plus a refundable bond (usually equal to one month's rent) is also generally required. Most residential lettings in the UK are governed by "Assured Shorthold Tenancy" contracts. Assured shorthold tenancies (generally referred to simply as "Shorthold") give less statutory protection than earlier, mostly obsolete, types of residential lettings. Shorthold tenancy agreements are standard contracts generally available from legal stationers and the internet for around £1.00, although most lettings agent will charge £30 to provide one.

It is important that tenant referencing checks are in place prior to a tenant moving into a property. The credit check can be run using credit history data from Equifax, Experian or Call Credit (the three main UK providers) using an in-house website system or a managed referencing service. A reputable agent will also ask for an employment reference and a previous landlord reference to verify that the tenant can afford the rental on the property and that there were no serious problems with the previous agent. It is also essential that proof of ID and proof of residency are also collected and filed.

Selling[link]

Estate agents selling residential property generally charge between 2% and 3% of the sale price plus VAT (Value Added Tax) Additional marketing charges are also applied for advertising, in media such as newspapers and websites.^[5]

Other approaches[link]

Since around 2000, online estate agents have provided an alternative to the traditional fee structure, claiming cheaper, fixed fee selling packages. These online estate agents claim to give private property sellers the ability to market their property via the major property portals (the preferred medium used by traditional high street estate agents) for a fraction of the cost of the traditional estate agency. New models have been introduced, which uses digital media screens in place of the agents traditional high street window. These screens allow agents to take their listings into remote locations where an office may otherwise not be available.

A report in 2010^[6] showed that online estate agents typically charge a fixed fee between £400 - £1,000 with some charging a further commission on sale and many charging additional fees for extra services such as the supply of a "For Sale" sign, professionally taken photographs and accompanied viewings.

In February 2010 the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) announced that a change in the legislation for estate agents has led to a shake up in the way homes are sold, allowing cheaper online agents to become more established than they could before.^[7]

New types of property portals based in the United Kingdom have started to encourage UK and worldwide estate agents to collaborate by showing all their properties, thus allowing site visitors to see a vast array of UK and overseas properties all on one website.

Screenshot of estate agency software programme dezrez which estate agents use to manage their estate agency

Many estate agents are using estate agency software to assist in the sale of houses. The latest technology enables home buyers to receive property details while outside a property, visit estate agents' websites for the latest listings and display properties for sale in the local vicinity using location based applications on mobile phones. A lot of property advertising is now automated for the agents using estate agents' software. Research undertaken in 2007 said that the most effective way of selling property is via 'For Sale' signs, 28% of customers had seen the estate agent's For Sale signs before researching more in depth into the properties. Searching for houses via the internet came in a close second (21%), with newspapers third at (17%). The fourth most effective way, and the most traditional, was customers visiting an estate agent's office (15%). However now in 2010 80/90%% of properties are found via the internet and agents see less people walking into their offices. Boards are still very effective, but many agents are now cutting out paper advertising and moving just to digital such as eMags and just the web.

Other methods included auctions (11%), word of mouth (3%) and leaflets (2%).

'Estate agent speak'[link]

Estate agents are known for their unique way of putting a positive spin on their description of properties. For example, 'in need of modernisation' may actually mean a great deal of repair work is required to a house.^[8]

See also[link]

• Buying agent
• Estate (house)
• Guaranteed home sale
• Price on application
• Real estate broker/agent

References[link]

External links[link]

• Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors
• National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA)
• The Independent Network of Estate Agents
• Association of Residential Lettings Agents (ARLA)