Seven is the magic number as Kelvin MacKenzie sells stake in son’s Base 79
Kelvin MacKenzie, the former chief executive of Talksport, the radio group, has made £5m from selling his stake in his son’s video aggregation business where he was founding chairman.
His son Ashley, has made £7m on the sale of his shares, replicating the success of his father when he sold his stake in Talksport for £7m when the group was sold on to its current owners UTV.
MacKenzie, who is raising money for another media venture, backed his son’s business at the outset when it was being set up on the family’s kitchen table.
MacKenzie said he had some fun with his son’s venture where the tables were turned on the former Sun editor.
“My son was commercial director at Talksport and had to answer to me whereas I had to answer to him on this one,” he told City A. M.
MacKenzie said his son deserved the credit for building the business, which distributes videos for publishers and advertisers and now gets 750m views a month on YouTube and other sites.
The MacKenzies sold their business, Base 79, to another London video company, Rightster.