• If Sara James' list of media holiday parties at WWD wasn't enough for you, the Observer surely rounds out the list. Well, ours isn't included, though it might help if we were celebrating with more than our reflection and a bottle of Ketel One. [NYO]
• Now that Wikipedia has been outed as entirely inaccurate on occasion, NYT staffers are now prohibited from using it to fact check. Judith Miller, however, is still an A-OK source. [Romenesko]
• Katie Couric's interview with TV Guide might as well have been an open letter to Les Moonves. [TVNewser]
• Turns out G+J didn't accurately represent the circulations of the three family titles it unloaded on Meredith Corp. [AdAge]
• The NYT claims to have "not lost one ad" to the WSJ's Weekend Journal. Uh huh. [AdAge]
• With Oddjack folding, Gawker kingpin Nick Denton needs to keep his blog roster figures up. So welcome The Consumerist, a goth approach to spending. [The Consumerist]
• Radar staffers will no longer have to go to work wearing Kevlar: Neighbor The Source is being evicted from West 23rd Street. [NYP]
• Lots of reporters, killed at once. [LAT]
It might not have been Inc. magazine's fault that Gruner + Jahr wanted to unload quicker than New Orleans does its water, but the title deserves a decent jabbing for only just realizing its sale and buyout would be a perfect story for a business magazine.
Like, its business magazine.
We don't plan to make a habit of writing about ourselves. In fact, when G+J AG announced in May that it was putting Inc. (and sister publication Fast Company) up for sale, it never occurred to us that we might end up writing a story about our auction. Obviously, we can't be as dispassionate about our own business as we try to be with others, but it's rare that we have ringside seats for such an interesting process and we learned so much that we decided to share it with you. We hope you'll find it worthwhile.
What we didn't expect, however, was a Les Moonves profile-sized item detailing the backstory of Joe Mansueto's eventual purchase, along with Fast Company. Good luck with that — it's a three-parter.
Drumming up any excuse to remind readers Boston once played a role in publishing (The Hub couldn't even hold on to The Atlantic Monthly, which split for D.C.), the Boston Globe is recycling the Gruner + Jahr U.S. magazine sell-off newspeg for a timeline of media withdrawl from its fair city.
Among those having dabbled in Boston: G+J, Telefonica, Vivendi Universal and Lycos. We'd tell you who's left, but even the Globe left that out of the article — and by now we're certain you given up hope for original reporting on this website.
But we can tell you that Boston magazine remains in Boston, but only because they can't afford a New York lease.
It's about damn time! Fine-a-frickingly, Gruner + Jahr officially (yep, we said it, adverb and all!) sold its last remaining U.S. titles, Inc. and Fast Company, to Morningstar-founding billionaire Joe Mansueto of Chicago - just as everyone in the world predicted.
The paperwork is still wet from Friday night's closing and, since it's the only reason this whole story held any interest, the final sale price is rumored to be $35 million. To make this story extra entertaining, we're going to once again remind you how much G+J originally paid for the two magazines: $550 million.
Hey now, that's not funny! Really, this is a heartwarming story about jobs (and brands) saved, and you should treat it as such.
And as Fast Company editor Jon Byrne is wont to do, he's taken to his blog to express his jubilation.
So wrote Henry David Thoreau in Walden some 150 years ago. And with today's news that Fast Company and Inc. have been purchased by a quintessential entrepreneur, I find those lines as inspiring and fitting as ever. They are the four sentences that end Thoreau's classic reflection in the woods, the words that inspired our new owner, Joe Mansueto, to name his own company, Morningstar, 21 years ago.
We could not have conjured up a better angel.
Oh god, this better not turn into a gay romance novel.
All the fun we've been having with Gruner + Jahr has effectively reached its end this week. After all the speculation of who's going to pay what for the $550 million pair of magazines that G+J is unloading at last, it looks like the winner is Joseph Mansueto.
The Morningstar investment firm founder will pay an estimated $35 million for both Fast Company and Inc., narrowing out The Economist Group and winning over G+J with his decision to continue publishing the mags - Economist didn't plan on that. So for the thinning mastheads at those biz mags, meet your new boss! Can't wait to read what Fast Company editor John Byrne has to say on his blog ..
The bids from Advance and Boston-based ad exec Bob Tierney must not have been significant enough for Gruner + Jahr, as the German publisher is said to be in final negotiations with Joe Mansueto, the founder of Chicago-based investment research firm Morningstar. Mansueto also beat out offers from The Economost Group for Fast Company and Inc., G+J's two remaining U.S. titles, and could sign a buyout deal by the middle of this week.
And while financial details aren't being trotted around like Katie Holmes on a red carpet, the price tag for the magazines is expected to stay in the range of previous estimates, somewhere around $40 million.
The deadline to sell Fast Company and Inc. is winding down for Gruner + Jahr. If they don't reach a deal on their own, the German publisher is contractually bound to release them at the end of the month to Meredith Corp., which itself is expected to unload the magazines through private sale or auction. And while there are at least five major parties interested, G+J is looking at a huge loss when it sells the titles.
Former G+J USA chief Daniel Brewster paid $350 million to Mort Zuckerman for Fast Company and shelled out another $200 million for Inc. later that year. Now the top expectations hit just $35 or $40 million for both mags, or a $500 million loss. Maybe that's why Daniel is the "former" CEO.
In today's edition of Unfortunate Headlines, let's take a peak at the current cover of soon-to-be-sold Fast Company. Cover story "Is Your Boss a Psychopath?" hits a bit close to home for the on-the-block title, but editor John Byrne kept the fun ball rolling with a tagline edit as well: From "How Smart People Work" to "How Crazy People Work" - and this isn't even a Bonnie Fuller-edited mag!
Blame it on the editorial calendar. Or blame it on Gruner + Jahr, everyone else is.
More details are surfacing in the roundabout game of "Who wants Inc. and Fast Company?" On Tuesday we told you about new players entering the bidding wars for the last of Gruner + Jahr's U.S. titles alongside Boston ad exec Brian Tierney, and now we've got names to name.
Among the five prospective buyers offering between $40 million to $50 million for G+J USA Publishing’s Fast Company and Inc. is a G+J management group comprised of CEO Russell Denson, Inc. vp, publisher Lee Jones and editor John Koten, as well as Ed Sussman, managing director of the two titles’ Web sites. The group is being represented by Abry Partners, a Boston-based media-focused private equity firm, according to sources familiar with the situation. …
The four additional bidders are Alta Communications, a Boston-based venture capital firm, Advance Publications’ City Business Journals, based in Charlotte N.C., The Economist, and Morningstar’s Joe Mansueto, who owns a 40 percent stake in Time Out Chicago.
And while Meredith had until June 30 to pay out $350 million for G+J's first four titles (Parents, Child, Fitness and Family Circle), their website says they've already completed the deal.
With Fast Company monitoring its own pulse as Gruner + Jahr figures out what to do with its bastard child, editor John Byrne is very busy being worried for his employees. One might think with an announcement about his magazine's future coming as early as this week, he'd be hunkered down underneath his desk where's he's wired a private printer for four-color resume copies. But nope, he's having breakfast.
"I feel a sense of responsibility — and I should," Byrne, 52, said evenly over breakfast in Midtown Manhattan on Monday. "This could involve disappointing people I've hired. I feel disappointed that I haven't been able to make a difference, financially."
And we're not saying John isn't anxious about what G+J have in store for him, but his staffers sound a bit more nervous.
Before he had taken his first sip of morning coffee, his cell phone rang. It was one of his Fast Companies editors pressing him for details about the gossip surrounding the sale of Fast Company.
Here's how to handle this when you've got a reporter right there: Texting "WE R FUKD." Or you could wait till you get back to the office and continue planning that 10th anniversary issue slated for November. Or is that just a staff joke?
The race is heating for bargain-priced Fast Company and Inc. (though don't tell FC editor John Byrne that) as Gruner + Jahr looks to unload its last two U.S. titles.
We told you last week about Boston advertising exec Brian Tierney's bid for the titles (and plans to build them into a small biz entourage of services), but now others are jumping into the fray.
Among them: Time Inc., Hearst, McGraw-Hill, the Economist Group, Forbes and CurtCo Media Labs. Meanwhile, a group of the magazines' insiders is also looking to court financial backing for an internal acquisition.
Final bids for the titles are due June 13 to provide enough time for G+J to meet its June 30 deadline with Meredith Corp., which picked up four of the German publisher's titles last month, including Parents and Family Circle, and will acquire the two business titles if G+J can't unload them.
We've heard this story before: Private investors looking to bid for big-name magazines from a colassal publisher. It makes us long for the glory days of Michael Wolff, but in this case it's Philadelphia ad exec Brian Tierney who's doing the bidding - for Gruner + Jahr's Fast Company (which has a valuation of more than zero, mind you) and Inc. magazines.
Along with a couple individual investors, Tierney wants to take the mags off G+J's hands and develop a small business services brand with them, from online properties to DVDs and conferences. He's got until June 30th to make good on his claims, otherwise G+J's contract with Meredith Corp. will kick in and the German publisher's two remaining U.S. titles will be handed off.
David Carr had to go and say Fast Company was worth absolutely nothing, and now he's got the mag's editor John Byrne getting pissy on his blog. Can't this type of thing be avoided with a private email? Certainly Byrne didn't expect to get this picked up by the blogs, did he? (*wink*!)
With Gruner + Jahr selling off its U.S. magazine business to Meredith Corp. but leaving Fast Company and and Inc. in limbo as it tries to negotiate a deal, Carr jumped to the assumption that the "two magazines that sold for more than half a billion dollars four years ago now have a value of zero."
Byrne, expectedly, doesn't appreciate his magazine being trashed. (Neither did Giant's Mark Remy, and he sounded off on us plenty.) And look, he's got one of those new blog things to write on!
He writes, for example, that Fast Company and Inc., both being sold by Gruner & Jahr, "now have a value of zero." That's silly and completely inaccurate. The writer jumps to this conclusion merely because Meredith Corp., which agreed to buy both business magazines if they can't be sold by G&J by the end of June, said such a sale would not be material to the overall purchase price. The reason it's not material is because Meredith intends to make as much or more selling us than it has agreed to pay G&J for Fast Company and Inc. These are two very valuable national magazine brands being sold at the worst time for G&J but the best time for any smart buyer. Smart investors, after all, buy low and sell high.
We were with him for most of it, and then he had to go and make a classic editor's mistake: assuming winning magazine awards translates to sale value.
And Fast Company has won eight important journalism and design awards for its past 16 issues through last year, including Folio's Award as the best business/consumer magazine in the country, the New York Press Club's award for the best business story in a magazine, and the Conference Board's award for doing the best coverage of work/life balance issues.
Not too bad for a magazine that Carr says "is more prone to slogans that look good in needlepoint, quaint artifacts of a by-gone era."
No, uh-uh. That ain't how it works, Byrne, and you know it. Unlike the Oscars, winning an Ellie (which, uh, isn't included here) or Folio award doesn't warrant a higher asking price.
Gruner + Jahr's sale of four U.S. magazines to Meredith Corp. was sure to rile up the staffs of Parents and Child, but we can't forget the biggest G+J celebrity: Rosie O'Donnell. And she's got words for ya.
DO U THINK
I WILL GET A THANK U NOTE
FROM MEREDITH PUBLISHING
KARMA IS A KILLERMR BREWSTER AND GANZ
PISSED AWAY
EVERYTHING
THE WAY SO MANY
MEAN MEN DO
Of course .. there's more.
(Image via Yahoo! Movies)
We can't really muster a straight enough face to say German publisher Gruner + Jarh has had much success in the U.S. Rosie wasn't just a flop, it was a scandal. Fast Company can't get its ad pages together to warrant that sand paper cover stock. And Inc. really only matters when it spews out an issue's worth of listicles and tells us about the best small businesses in America. So it kinda makes sense that G+J, a subsidary of Bertelsmann, is selling out. And selling out to Meredith Corp.
Meredith, whose name popped up in March during a lesbian intern scandal, is home to Ladies Home Journal and Better Homes and Gardens - all not-so-sexy magazines that probably come free with regular viewing of Desperate Housewives.
Four titles will be released to Meredith for a deal reported at $350 million, which include Parents, Child, Fitness and Family Circle. Perhaps that whole strategy of releasing magazines with the exact same content under different names wasn't really paying off. But somehow Meredith is spinning banknotes out of it.
They'll also have the option of picking up Fast Company and Inc., so ready yourselves for new editors, slashed staffs and editor stealing. Thanks, G+J!
