Isentia CEO John Croll insists company didn’t overpay for King Content, as he looks to more-secure long-term contracts
Isentia CEO John Croll has dismissed concerns the company overpaid for King Content and said the content marketing arm of Isentia will now search for more-secure long-term contracts to ensure it has reliable revenues.
Croll’s insistence that the company had not been misled in the $48m acquisition in 2015 comes after the announcement that the King Content brand would be axed with a number of international office closures as a result.

Croll: King Content was a promising business
Croll dismissed allegations that the company had been misled by King Content’s founders: “We did due diligence with good reputable companies and what we saw was a business going from about $2m in revenue to $7m in revenue to $15m and then $20-odd-million in the first years we had it.
“Stories will show our customers how a piece of news is evolving in real-time so they can make decisions faster,”. Huh? Please Explain?
If they didn’t overpay for King Content, why did they just announce to the stock exchange a complete writeoff of $38m investment in King Content. Valuing it now at NIL?
You can’t have it both ways..
Isentia is just trying to put a positive spin on what was clearly a disaster. And by “dismissing concerns” that the company overpaid for King Content – $38m less than two years ago – implies they have money to burn.
While quality journalism and storytelling continue to wither on the vine, these multi-million dollar “content marketing” deals will keep happening due to a lack of understanding of what value content marketing actually provides and how to put a dollar value on it.