Reader's Digest sold for £1

Reader's Digest has been sold for just £1 to Mike Luckwell, whose previous major investments have included Bob the Builder creator HIT Entertainment and WPP.

Jon Moulton's private equity company, Better Capital, has offloaded Reader's Digest UK – the waiting room staple that was once the biggest selling magazine in the world – after investing tens of millions of pounds into trying to rejuvenate the struggling business.

Luckwell, the venture capitalist whose personal fortune is estimated at more than £135m, has acquired the title with the aim of targeting the "frisky over-50s" group that holiday and insurance company Saga has built a successful business on.

"Saga cleverly focused on holidays and the financial sector for the over-50s, but now has a finger in many pies," Luckwell said. "Today it has annual sales running into hundreds of millions – that merits a bit of competition."

Luckwell said the acquisition will provide access to a database of more than 1.5 million names, of which only 9% have recently purchased a Reader's Digest product.

"There is significant potential to further develop and utilise those large databases," he said.

Better Capital took the business out of administration in a £13m management buy-out in April 2010, and has since ploughed a further £23m into the company.

The investment failed to fuel a turnaround at the title, which no longer has its sales officially audited in the UK.

Luckwell has made his fortune through a range of deals and investments, starting with his launch of the Moving Picture Company post-production business in 1970.

In the 1980s, MPC merged into Carlton Communications, with Luckwell becoming the latter's largest shareholder and eventually selling out for £25m.

In the late 1980s, he was the biggest shareholder in Sir Martin Sorrell's WPP. In the 1990s, investments included HIT Entertainment, home to Bob the Builder and Barney, from which he made £33m when it was sold to Apax in 2005.

Reader's Digest was founded in 1922 by DeWitt and Lila Bell Wallace. By the early 1960s it had a global circulation of 23 million an issue with 40 international editions.

The title remained the biggest selling consumer magazine in the US until as recently as 2008.

To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email media@theguardian.com or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".