Hughes, who quit Emap last year and is also a non-executive director of the supermarket group J Sainsbury, will join UBM, the FTSE 250 media group, with a brief to expand its CMP Information (CMPI) division internationally.
CMPI accounts for about 30% of the group’s profits, and was previously run by Bernard Gray, who quit to run Times Supplements Limited following its acquisition by Exponent Private Equity. The business includes magazine titles such as Music Week and exhibitions such as The Pub & Bar Show.
Hughes’s arrival will come as David Levin, UBM’s chief executive, continues his reshaping of the group by putting a portfolio of magazine assets on the auction block.
Levin has hired Long Acre Partners, a corporate-finance boutique, to raise up to £60m by selling off a number of undisclosed titles. Ironically, given Hughes’s imminent arrival, Emap is being lined up as a possible buyer of the assets.
The restructuring of UBM, which has a market value of £1.76 billion, has included the sale of its 33% stake in Five, the broadcaster, to majority shareholder RTL; the disposal of NOP Research; and the offloading of Exchange & Mart to US group Newsquest for more than £50m. In total, disposals last year raised £730m.
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Levin joined the group last year from Symbian in place of Lord Hollick, and has since assembled a new line-up of senior managers, of which Hughes is the latest appointment.
Analysts believe that Levin now has a war-chest worth about £1 billion to spend on acquisition opportunities. He has recently been snapping up clusters of internet-based assets, reflecting the rapid growth of the online advertising market.
UBM declined to comment this weekend on Hughes’s appointment or the proposed asset sales.