East Anglia: Archant acquires full ownership of Tickles.co.uk and 40Winks.co.uk

COMMUNITY media group Archant, whose titles include the EADT, has acquired full ownership of the company behind group buying website Tickles.co.uk and travel deals website 40Winks.co.uk by purchasing the remaining 50% stake it did not already own.

Tickles was launched in May 2010 and Archant acquired 50% of the business in December the same year.

The Tickles business now operates in Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire, with Archant having helped boost membership from 20,000 to 116,000 over the past 16 months. Tickles customers have now saved nearly �1.8million through its daily deals.

Adrian Jeakings, chief executive of Archant, said: “We are delighted to have now taken full ownership of Tickles and 40Winks. We have plans to grow the business further and look forward to future developments.

“I would like to thank the team at Pearcey Venture Partners for their valuable input and support and we wish them well in their other ventures.”

Elly Montgomery from Pearcey Venture Partners said: “It’s been fantastic developing Tickles and we wish everyone at Archant continued success in growing the platform further.”

Mr Jeakings added: “Archant’s long-standing presence in the local communities we serve means that we are ideally positioned to negotiate the best deals with local businesses and then give them maximum exposure to attract local customers through our newspapers, magazines, websites, mobile sites and apps.

“The completion of this purchase improves our offering to customers and demonstrates Archant’s drive to find the most innovative and cost-effective ways for our local advertisers to reach their target audience.”

The terms of the deal were not disclosed.