Adweek, the US-based B2B brand, has a new parent company for the ninth time in its 41-year history. It operates across print, digital and audio platforms and claims an audience of more than 6m professionals. It has been acquired from Beringer Capital, of Toronto, by Shamrock Capital. Beringer has published Adweek for four years since the…
Vedemosti taken over
The Russian-language business daily Vedemosti has been acquired by Ivan Eremin, owner of the Federal Press Agency, of Moscow. The last-minute acquisition followed the collapse of a previous deal over apparent concerns at potential censorship. Editorial staff are reportedly uneasy at the pro-Kremlin stance they are apparently now obliged to take. The publisher Demyan Kudryavtsev…
Environment archive deal
Grist, the Seattle, US non-profit online magazine for environmental and sustainability news, has acquired the digital archives of the closed social environmental justice brand Pacific Standard for nil consideration. The magazine had been founded in 2008 and went digital-only before closing last year. It had been published by the Social Justice Foundation, of California. Grist…
Ways to reinvent media
Some 4m Brits regularly watch a channel which screens old movies, TV programmes, travel features, public information films, and video clips of social history. Some are in black-and-white, some were “B” movies, and some are cinema classics from a half-forgotten world before streaming and reality TV shows. You may not have heard of Talking Pictures…
Fairfax NZ goes to MBO
Sinead Boucher, CEO of Stuff Ltd., Fairfax Media’s New Zealand subsidiary, is completing a hastily-arranged MBO from its Australian parent Nine Entertainment Company. NEC, Australia’s largest media group, had acquired Sydney-based Fairfax Media for A$1.6bn in 2018. Stuff owns New Zealand’s largest news website (launched in 2000), nine daily newspapers including The Dominion Post and…
eBay auction is hot
eBay has reportedly received initial bids of $8-10bn for its classifieds business, with interest reported to be coming from global competitors and private equity including: Axel Springer (now backed by KKR), Naspers, Adevinta (formerly part of Schibsted), and a consortium of Blackstone, Permira and Hellman & Friedman. eBay is responding to pressure from investors and…
NordStar buys Toronto Star
NordStar Capital LP is acquiring Torstar Corp, the owner of the Toronto Star newspaper, in a deal worth Can$52m / US$38m. The Toronto Star is Canada’s largest circulation daily newspaper but (not uniquely) it has struggled with the monetisation of online. The outgoing Torstar chair John Honderich said this week: “No one disputes that the business model…
Top Hat buys textbooks
Top Hat, the Canadian ed tech company, is to buy 400 textbook titles from Nelson Education Ltd, also of Canada. The educational publishing market has been growing during the Covid lockdowns. The deal is thought to be worth $30m and moves Top Hat to being a major college textbook publisher, while Nelson will concentrate on…
Intercept buys indie label
Sanwire Corp, of Los Angeles, via its Intercept Music subsidiary, is to buy North Carolina-based Art Is War Records, a record production and distribution company with a focus on independent artists. Intercept Music provides an online distribution platform for music alongside musician’s merchandise and live performance. Intercept Music
How can Time Out survive?
This report was posted before the announcement today (22 May) that Time Out Group Plc is proposing to raise £45m by way of a private share placing at 35p per share, compared with today’s 39p share price (down 5%). More than half of the new shares will be taken up by Oakley Capital, and around…
