blog post 9

Forbes Media exploring sale

Forbes Media, controlled by former Republican presidential candidate Steve Forbes, is up for sale. CEO Mike Perlis said Forbes has received indications of interest from investors for the company, which includes Forbes magazine and Forbes.com. The company is looking to sell for about $400 million, according to a report by Bloomberg News. The Forbes family still controls the company after selling a 45% stake to investment firm Elevation Partners in 2006. Forbes Magazine has been focusing heavily on the digital side of its editorial operations to make up for the sluggishness in print ad sales. The company has also focused on diversifying the revenue streams to complement its advertising-based businesses. In an early experiment in native advertising — advertising that resembles the look and feel of a publication’s editorial content — Forbes also began selling access to the publishing platform, allowing corporate sponsors to post their own material on Forbes.com. With a flood of material available, Forbes.com’s traffic grew from about 12 million unique monthly visitors in 2010 to about 26 million. This year, digital advertising surpassed print ads sales for the first time, and now makes up about half of total advertising revenue. To diversify the revenue base, Perlis has expanded the company’s conference business and begun licensing the brand name to office buildings. The publishing software is also licensed to publishers that want to replicate the contributor-submission model of content creation.

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References:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/11/15/forbes-media-for-sale/3579419/