Forbes Unloaded to Asian Group
Mon., Jul. 21, 2014
By Kevin McCauley
The Forbes family has surrendered control of its print/online business publication for more than $300M.
Steve Forbes, editor-in-chief and Mike Perlis will remain at the 97-year-old publishing company, which includes 6.1M-circulation Forbes magazine, and the No. 3 business/financial news website after Yahoo and Dow Jones, parent of the Wall Street Journal.
The transaction enables private equity firm Elevation Partners to exit its $264M investment that it made in 2006.
The Forbes family put Forbes on the auction bloc in November, but found scant interest among US media companies.
Integrated Whale Media Investments of Hong Kong, which is led by Tak Cheung Yam, is the new owner of so-called "Capitalist Tool."
Yam said in a statement that Forbes has generated "tremendous growth of digital in the past decade" and has more Internet and social media expansion projects on tap.
Forbes noted his former company now has more digital than print, which is under pressure like other publications.
He has aggressively pushed a "native advertising" program called "BrandVoice."
One challenge, he added, is to overcome the widespread perception that Forbes is only in print.
The sale includes Forbes Life, newsletters and conferences. Forbes is licensed in 36 countries.
The Forbes family will own about 20 percent of the sold property.
The company is moving from its Greenwich Village headquarters to Jersey City. It sold the HQ townhouse five years ago to New York University, but remained there as a renter.
Steve Forbes, editor-in-chief and Mike Perlis will remain at the 97-year-old publishing company, which includes 6.1M-circulation Forbes magazine, and the No. 3 business/financial news website after Yahoo and Dow Jones, parent of the Wall Street Journal.
The transaction enables private equity firm Elevation Partners to exit its $264M investment that it made in 2006.
The Forbes family put Forbes on the auction bloc in November, but found scant interest among US media companies.
Integrated Whale Media Investments of Hong Kong, which is led by Tak Cheung Yam, is the new owner of so-called "Capitalist Tool."
Yam said in a statement that Forbes has generated "tremendous growth of digital in the past decade" and has more Internet and social media expansion projects on tap.
Forbes noted his former company now has more digital than print, which is under pressure like other publications.
He has aggressively pushed a "native advertising" program called "BrandVoice."
One challenge, he added, is to overcome the widespread perception that Forbes is only in print.
The sale includes Forbes Life, newsletters and conferences. Forbes is licensed in 36 countries.
The Forbes family will own about 20 percent of the sold property.
The company is moving from its Greenwich Village headquarters to Jersey City. It sold the HQ townhouse five years ago to New York University, but remained there as a renter.
Category: Media News
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