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Forbes eyes sale of title and web publications
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The Forbes family is exploring the sale of its eponymous magazine title and web publications, becoming the latest prominent media family to bow to the realities of an industry in turmoil.
While it follows signs of digital growth at Forbes Media, best known for its rankings of wealthy individuals, a sale for an estimated US$400 million to US$500 million still amounts to an acknowledgement by its founding family that a traditional publishing business is a tough one to turn around.
Chief Executive Mike Perlis, in a memo to employees on Friday, said the company had hired Deutsche Bank to explore a sale of the company founded by financial newspaper columnist Bertie Charles Forbes in 1917.
The move comes after years of changes for the privately held, family-controlled company that has made a push to expand its online presence and which, in 2006, sold a 45 percent stake to Elevation Partners, the private equity firm that counts U2 singer Bono as a co-founder and managing director.
A source familiar with the matter said on Friday that Forbes is hoping to fetch between US$400 million and US$500 million in a potential sale. The proceeds would help repay a US$264 million investment Elevation Partners made in Forbes, which it expects to be repaid in the next several years, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous sources. Elevation valued its stake at about US$30 million last year, the newspaper said.
The move follows the decision by the Graham family earlier this year to sell the Washington Post to Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, as well as the Bancroft family's sale of the Wall Street Journal in 2007.
Perlis said an investment bank was hired after the firm received “serious” overtures and now “expects interest from numerous suitors.”
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