US private equity firm Falfurrias Capital Partners (owner of Industry Dive, see separate story this week) has bought the Ballast Research arm of David Bradley’s National Journal Group. Terms not disclosed.
The research group, which is said to be profitable, was founded in 2013. The deal completes the sell off of Atlantic Media assets leaving the National Journal as Bradley’s sole wholly-owned business. In recent years, Bradley has sold most of what was once Atlantic Media Inc, including The Atlantic, Government Executive, and Quartz. Axios says that, in 2013, Atlantic Media had revenue of more than $100m including $43m from The Atlantic and $37m from National Journal.
It is three years since Bradley sold a 70% stake in The Atlantic to Laurene Powell Jobs’s Emerson Collective for $100m, which is expected eventually to take full control.
Bradley had acquired it in 1999 for $10m from former New York Post owner Mort Zuckerman, and is credited with transforming the political monthly into a profitable digital-journalism and live-events company, now with global reach – even while continuing to publish the 163-year-old print magazine.
Bradley said: “Against the odds, The Atlantic is prospering. While I will stay at the helm some years, the most consequential decision of my career now is behind me: Who next will take stewardship of this 160-year-old national treasure? To me, the answer, in the form of Laurene, feels incomparably right.”
In September, The Atlantic published a scoop which reported that President Trump had described American soldiers who died in war as “losers” and “suckers”. The article drew the president’s public criticism but was followed by a month in which the site added no fewer than 60k new subscribers, since when The Atlantic has (according to Digiday) attracted some 370k new subscribers, bringing its total to more than 650k in just a year since its introduction of a paywall – reckoned to be worth some $20m annually to the (apparently) lossmaking publication.
It is two years since Atlantic sold Quartz to Uzabase for a price believed to be $75m. But it was re-sold last month in an MBO after losing a reported $55m for the Japanese owner.
Bradley now says he is committed to owning and growing National Journal — the first media company he owned — for at least the next 10 years.
National Journal is moving towards a political consulting business model and away from ad revenue business; all of its journalism is now subscription funded after the magazine ceased printing in 2015. Falfurrias, meanwhile, is trying to move its portfolio more towards policy influencers. (Last year, it bought a majority of B2B newsletter publisher Industry Dive).
Before his career as a publisher, David Bradley founded the Advisory Board Company and the Corporate Executive Board, two Washington DC-based consulting companies.
