MJS Capital sells Tempus Magazine to private security specialist

Link: All our articles on MJS / Colarb Capital

Tempus, the luxury lifestyle magazine, has relaunched after a five-month hiatus, after being sold by collapsed unregulated investment firm MJS Capital (now Colarb).

Tempus was effectively acquired by MJS Capital in March 2017, and used extensively to help sell its unregulated bonds, with frequent double-page ads in the magazine and advertorial articles about MJS Capital itself, which misleadingly described the bonds as low risk.

The September 2018 issue, ironically named a “Wealth Edition”, was the last under MJS Capital’s ownership. The magazine then ceased to publish for several months.

At the end of January 2019, however, Tempus published a further issue under new ownership. The contents page identifies Vantage Media Limited aka Vantage Media Group as the new owners.

Vantage Media Limited is wholly owned by sole director and ex Army medic Colin Clark (as is a very similarly named company, Vantage Media Group Limited). Colin Clark is also a member of cybersecurity specialist Valkyrie GB Limited, with his role described on his LinkedIn profile as “Executive Operations”.

In Tempus’ first issue under the new ownership, there is a double-page ad on pages 6-7 of the magazine (the slot once frequently occupied by MJS Capital ads) for Volopa, a sister company to Valkyrie that offers multi-currency debit cards.

The contents page suggests the editorial staff have survived the transition to Vantage largely intact. Colin Clark is described modestly on the contents page as “Operations Director”.

MJS / Colarb faced a petition to wind the company up on 20 February. Unofficially this petition is believed to have been granted, although we’re waiting on official confirmation from Companies House to bring you more news.

Given that MJS went into liquidation only a few months after it sold Tempus to Vantage, and had already been in default of its obligations for months before then, the deal is likely to be scrutinised closely by the administrators. This is of course no concern of Vantage’s.

Vantage Media Limited was incorporated in October 2018, a month after Tempus temporarily stopped publishing under MJS, suggesting that the deal was lined up quickly.

I reached out to Tempus for comment as to how much the deal was worth; at time of writing they have not responded.