After three months on the block, popular financial magazine BusinessWeek has a buyer.
Bloomberg LP announced yesterday that it had reached an agreement to buy the 80-year-old magazine which, like most print publications, has suffered from a slump in advertising sales amid the recession of the past year.
Terms of the deal were not released, but it is expected to be finalized by the end of the year. Unnamed sources cited by Business Week estimated the price tag to be between $2-million and $5-million (U.S.)
BusinessWeek's current owner, McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., put the magazine on the block in July. It is not the only section of the company's business that is troubled; in addition to selling textbooks, McGraw-Hill owns credit-rating agency Standard & Poor's, which was hurt by the U.S. mortgage crisis. In April, McGraw-Hill projected revenue losses of roughly 5 per cent this year.
The deal for BusinessWeek caps off a battle for the magazine between Bloomberg and a private equity fund Selznick Media. The fund was working on an agreement with Bloomberg rival Thomson Reuters Corp. to distribute Business Week content on the Reuters news service.
The magazine will help Bloomberg add analytical content to its current offerings, which focus on rapid news reporting and giving financial professionals information through roughly 300,000 electronic terminals, Bloomberg president Daniel Doctor off said in a statement yesterday.
"BusinessWeek helps better serve our customers by reaching into the corporate suite and corridors of power in government, where news that affects markets and business is made by CEOs, CFOs, deal lawyers, bankers and government officials who typically are not terminal customers," Mr. Doctor off said.
Bloomberg has tapped Norman Pearlstine to become BusinessWeek's chairman. His résumé includes time spent as managing editor for The Wall Street Journal and editor-in-chief at Time Inc. Mr. Pearlstine is currently Bloomberg's chief content officer.
The deal could allow Bloomberg to expand its presence, reaching a wider audience than what BusinessWeek called "its sweet spot of catering to Wall Street and the professional investor community," in a story on its website yesterday.
The magazine, which employs more than 400 people, has held its subscribers with a circulation of about 921,000. But ad revenue has shrunk significantly, and the tightening market has caused other magazines, such as Gourmet and Portfolio, to close.
