Linton Capital LLP

Linton Capital LLP began as Sefton Partners LLP in 2005. It is a London based investment fund management business which has been in operation since 2005. The company's investments tend to focus on the energy, tech and media sectors. The company is wholly owned by David Sefton.

Its media properties are managed through a subsidiary, Greencastle Capital. These properties include The London Economic, the Lovin Media Group (acquired in November 2020) and, both Joe.ie and Her.ie which were acquired in June 2020 from Niall McGarry’s Maximum Media Limited.

Linton Capital took a circuitous route into online media ownership. In June 2018 David Sefton stepped in as interim executive chairman at Unilad, after the previous co-CEO had been forced to step down following allegations of historic misconduct. Unilad was a “viral news” social media-focused publisher targeting a young male demographic. By mid-2018 it was the fourth largest publisher on Facebook, exceeding even the Daily Mail. Despite this, Unilad went into administration in 2018 with £UK10m in debt and facing an unpaid £UK1.5m tax bill. Sefton’s Linton Capital made a £UK10m bid for the company but Unilad was ultimately acquired by LADBible, another news site with similar content and audience profile.

In February 2019, WideCells Group PLC announced that Linton owner David Sefton had acquired a 29.99% interest in the company through another of his companies, Nuuco Media Limited. Widecells was a healthcare company “focused on collecting and storing stem cells” which had been listed on the London Stock Exchange since July 2016. Sefton’s stake in Widecells saw him appointed executive chairman with immediate effect. His first decision was to devolve the company’s original activities in the stem cell field to a wholly-owned subsidiary (WideCells International Limited). At the same time, two of existing directors - WideCells co-founder, Joao Andrade and Dr. Jeremy Lea - stepped down from their respective roles on the Board of the WideCells parent company.

If the original purpose of the company was now in the hands of a subsidiary, this left the question of what the focus of the parent was. The answer appeared a month later in March 2019 when WideCells released a press release announcing the creation of a new company division “encompassing a new media and technology business focussed on providing online marketing, content and technology driven products.” The press release also announced the intention of a name change from WideCells to Iconic Labs plc.

David Sefton was identified as Executive Chairman of the new company while one John Quinlan was identified as the CEO. Quinlan did not have a background in the natural sciences. He had, however, been CEO at Unilad in the years before it went into administration. Quinlan was joined at Iconic Labs by two other senior figures from Unilad: Unilad former co-owner Liam Harrington (who became Iconic’s Chief Business Officer) and Sam Asante who came in as Chief Operations Officer.

In December 2019 Iconic reported that David Sefton was resigning as Chairman on the grounds that 'rumour and market speculation' regarding his previous Anglo African Oil & Gas was having an adverse effect on Iconic Labs. John Quinlan stepped in as interim chairman. However, this did not mark the end of Linton’s association with Iconic Labs. In 2020, Linton Capital established a new subsidiary, Greencastle Capital, as a “vehicle to concentrate Linton’s investments in the technology and media sectors.” In April that year Greencastle made its first media acquisition when it purchased a majority stake in The London Economic digital news outlet. Greencastle appointed Iconic Labs to manage The London Economic and any other subsequent media ventures. Two months later Greencastle acquired Maximum Media for €10.5m and with it Joe.ie and Her.ie. Again Iconic Labs were appointed to manage the newly acquired brands. (In November 2020, Greencastle also acquired the Lovin Media Group, an Ireland-facing digital lifestyle content producer.)

Some concerns have subsequently been expressed about unacknowledged influences on The London Economic’s editorial content. The London Economic had originally been set up as a personal blog in 2012 by Jack Peat who worked in media and marketing. It had gradually morphed into a minor alternative online news media outlet which achieved brief prominence during the 2017 UK election when one of its stories about Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn went viral.

In February 2021, The London Economic published an anonymous article supporting UK energy giant, British Petroleum’s investment in the Russian state-owned oil firm, Rosneft. (Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Rosneft’s CEO, Igor Sechi was subjected to EU and UK sanctions in February 2022. In the same month, under pressure from the British government, BP agreed to sell their stake in Rosneft.)

The February 2021 London Economic article became the focus of an investigation by the not-for-profit investigative journalism website OpenDemocracy.net. In March 2022, openDemocracy published an article describing the BP/Rosneft article as an example of “reputation washing”. The article further suggested that this was not the only instance of reputation washing in The London Economic. It cited two others about Egyptian steel magnate Ahmed Ezz and Israeli mining billionaire Dan Gertler. (Ezz had been convicted of money laundering in 2012 while Gertler had been subject to US sanctions in 2017 for corrupt activities in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Neither article made any reference to these facts.) OpenDemocracy cited “multiple sources in the PR industry “who claimed they had paid The London Economic to publish “favourable articles about wealthy clients”. In each case the goal was “to “push down” negative publicity on Google rankings”. The London Economic’s response “did not confirm or deny whether money had changed hands for any of the articles”. Instead it committed to ensuring that their editors understood Advertising Standards Authority regulations which require sponsored content to be clearly marked as having been paid for.