Business for sale

Business description

This business, founded some 21 years ago by the current vendors, was set up initially to support the delivery of the AEB ‘A’ Level Physical Education syllabus. It has since grown to encompass Physical Education and Sport Studies for all syllabuses at AS/A2 Levels, BTEC, GCSE and Primary Schools. In addition this company supports many allied subjects such as Leisure and Tourism, Physiotherapy, Travel and Public Services. The company now offers a comprehensive range of resources for classroom delivery for Primary right through to Higher Education with its own brand publications as well as offering a full range of books from other recognised publishers. In addition business offers a ‘Buy All Your Books from Us’ service. This offers schools the opportunity to buy all their books/IT resources in one large order at enhanced discounts. Some current customers are now spending £14,000 per annum using this service. This service reduces the finance officer’s workload and increases potential discount margins. This general service offers every opportunity to expand the current turnover.

There are two distinct parts to the business, Mail Order and In-House Publications.

Mail Order- This involves the retailing of the company’s own brand titles and currently a further one thousand titles sourced from over fifty respected publishers. These resources include books, DVD’s, CD-Roms, Wall Charts and Book Jacket services. About 80% of orders are fulfilled using third parties (i..e. shipped direct from publisher/distributor) with the remaining 20% being delivered from stock (current stock figures circa £175,000 – this figure represents the retail price and within this total £150,00 represents the stock of new products – see paragraph below).

In house Publications- The company is proud to publish its own resources in the form of books, DVD’s and CD-Roms. The brand is well established and has excellent recognition within the industry. The current range is in excess of twenty titles with a 6 new titles that have been published in the last 12 months and a further 2 products to be developed within the next 6 months. All 8 products have been written for the AS/A2 PE examinations for AQA, OCR and Edexcel exam boards that commenced in September 2008. All work is done in house, the business creates its own DVD footage as well as designing, writing and developing all such necessary resources.

The business has built up a very desirable customer base over the years. Total customer numbers are circa 8000. These include Primary Schools, Secondary Schools/Colleges/ Higher Educational Establishments as well as book shops and private clients. These clients are predominantly based within the UK. In saying that the business does do a small amount of international business.