Asian Babes, along with other titles such as Readers Wives, was part of Desmond's "portfolio" of soft-porn magazines which was offered for sale in 2001 in order to provide cash to invest in the then newly-acquired Express Newspapers group. An article in BBC Online reported that some would view the sale as an attempt to distance himself from the pornography business. The piece went on to say that most analysts believed it to be only a financial move as The Fantasy Channel, Northern and Shell's adult cable channel, wasn't included in the sale.