This situation with SMD is looking mighty familiar. Yesterday, they didn't show up at all in a Companies House search, except as a dissolved company. Today, the paperwork has made its way through the Companies House bureaucracy and we have some new info.
It's all beginning to look very familiar:
Date of incorporation
Brush Colour: 8th December 2005
SMD Publishing: 6th December 2005
Name changes
Brush Colour: Changed name to Encanta Media Ltd on 20th January 2006 (the same day it made its Highbury acquisition)
SMD Publishing: Changed name from Astroplan Ltd on 23rd January 2006 (the same day it made its Highbury acquisition)
Appointments
Brush Colour: Registered through companies (“YORK PLACE COMPANY SECRETARIES LIMITED”, “YORK PLACE COMPANY NOMINEES LIMITED”)
SMD Publishing: Registered through companies (“ACI SECRETARIES LIMITED”, “ACI DIRECTORS LIMITED”)
Looks like someone's been passing around the company acquisition cheat notes.
There is nothing really fishy here. Because of the time it takes to process the companies house paperwork, of the shelf companies are registered by agents with bland names, and the first company resolution is to change the name. All it means is that this is a new company registered via 'formation service' :)