John Brown, the head of the eponymous publishing empire that launched Viz in the UK, is to pocket nearly £20m after selling his contract publishing business to a private equity firm.

Mr Brown is selling the business, which produces magazines for companies such as BSkyB, Virgin Atlantic and Bentley distributor HR Owen, to private equity firm Bridgepoint Capital, which is backing a management buyout.

Mr Brown's contract publishing arm is estimated to have fetched £33m including debt, according to a report in the Financial Times that said that another venture group, Hg Capital, also looked at the business.

The sale effectively puts an end to Mr Brown's long association with publishing. He sold the group's consumer titles, including Viz and Fortean Times, to James Brown's IFG and the BBC three years ago.

He still sits on the board of Wisden Group, which publishes the famous cricket almanac and is a shareholder in travel magazine publisher Wanderlust.

Set up as part of Mr Brown's consumer publishing group, the contract publishing business was split off in 1996 then merged with rival publisher Citrus six years later

With an estimated 13% share of the UK market, it is bigger than either of its two main rivals, Redwood and Haymarket.

In addition to producing magazines for supermarket chain Waitrose and the Orange mobile phone network, JBP produces BSkyB's subscriber magazine, which has a circulation of over 7 million, the largest in the UK.

The company reported billings of £51m for the year to March 31 as it benefited from a growing trend towards one-to-one publishing.

Bridgepoint is backing the current management led by chief executive Andrew Hirsch. Last July the private equity firm backed former ITV executives Steve Morrison, David Liddiment and Jules Burns in a £45m buyout of Chrysalis' TV arm.

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