Rex Features Bought Out By Management

Rex features stays independent through a management buy out that passes control from the Selby family to a group of staff/management and individual investors

PRESS RELEASE

Rex Features, owned by the Selby family since Frank and Elizabeth Selby launched the company in 1954, today announces that it is to pass control to its staff, management and a small group of individual investors. While the Selby family will retain a significant financial interest in the business, the current Director of Sales and Marketing, Larry Lawson, takes on the position of managing director. The management and staff of Rex will remain as it is.

John Selby, Mike Selby, Sue Selby and Martin Hillier will continue to support the Company and this, combined with the comprehensive knowledge and experience of Rex’s staff, will ensure a seamless transition as well as the Company’s continued dedication to contributors and clients.

Larry Lawson said “The company is in a strong position: Rex has managed to continue growing its business in difficult economic circumstances and can truly claim to be the world’s largest independent photo agency.

What makes Rex great is that it continues to be a photographers’ agency with a phenomenally diverse range of suppliers and a vast catalogue of material. Our reputation for expert photo editing around the clock, coupled with efficient prompt payment to all contributors will continue to ensure that we are the first port of call for both photographers and clients.

The company has recently taken on a number of new staff, and we envisage opportunities arising to expand the team further as we produce and place more and more live news and features material. Rex has an excellent international distribution network, with many long-standing relationships built up with agents and clients around the world. Our US business, Berliner Photography in Los Angeles, provides Rex with a fully operational production and sales office and is poised to make further significant inroads into the US market.

Rex’s reputation for honesty, integrity and traditional values will remain at the core of the company. It is this priceless asset, combined with Rex’s proven ability to adapt to the constant change in the media industry, that gives Rex its commanding position in the world market. I want to make this business even more
successful and we will be investing our energy and resources to do so.”

John Selby said “Since its foundation by our parents, Rex Features has gone from strength to strength largely as a result of our strict adherence to our core values of fair dealing and good service to photographers and clients alike. Rex Features has enjoyed a great reputation within our industry and we are very pleased to be able to pass on the running of this Company to our “extended family”, the management and staff. I am very confident that the brand we have built up over the years between all of us will thrive and continue to play a key role in the provision of editorial imagery to the media and all picture users around the world.”