It's amazing what you can pick up from WH Smith these days. RM popped into the newsagent yesterday, emerging with the "major assets of Helicon Publishing Ltd".

The educational IT specialist is paying £700K in return, with the cheque made payable to Hodder Headline, a WH Smith subsidiary.

The assets include 22 reference databases, the electronic rights to Hutchinson-branded reference books, eight staff and some online publishing contracts. ®