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Bloomberg To Acquire McGraw-Hill's BusinessWeek
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by Yuliya Talmazan | October 13, 2009 at 01:57 pm
66 views | 6 Recommendations | 2 comments
Financial news service and data company Bloomberg will buy BusinessWeek, a business magazine owned by McGraw-Hill publishers. The magazine had nearly a million subscriptions and was run by John Byrne. BusinessWeek was an influential business periodical competing against publications like Fortune and Forbes. Lately, the magazine has not been doing well. On July 13, McGraw-Hill announced that it would sell off BusinessWeek, but it was not clear who the bidder would be.
Today, it was announced that Bloomberg will buy BusinessWeek, which only makes sense given the business specificity of Bloomberg's informational services.
Tom Lowry, a senior writer for BusinessWeek, broke the news on BusinessWeek's website today. No details of the deal have been disclosed. However, Lowry mentioned that anywhere from $2 to $5 million will be paid by Bloomberg. In addition, Bloomberg will assume responsibility for all of BusinessWeek's debt. The press release also does not clarify what the potential job cuts can be. But, the publication will continue as it ran before with an edition every week and constant online updates.
Terms of the offer will not be disclosed by Bloomberg and BusinessWeek parent McGraw-Hill Cos. But knowledgeable sources say that Bloomberg’s cash offer is in the $2 million to $5 million range and that it has agreed to assume liabilities, including potential severance payments. It remains to be seen how much of the magazine’s 400-plus staff Bloomberg plans to cut, but reports of a planned scorched earth campaign are overblown, say sources.
Lowry emphasizes that the acquisition is unprecedented for Bloomberg that usually "builds rather than buys." He quotes the President of Bloomberg, saying that Bloomberg is buying BusinessWeek to "build it," not to "gut it." Lowry says acquiring BusinessWeek will expand Bloomberg's audience to include corporate executives and senior government officials.
“We are uniquely positioned to preserve and build the market presence of BusinessWeek,” says Norman Pearlstine, Bloomberg chief content officer and a former editor-in-chief of Time Inc. and executive editor of The Wall Street Journal. “Our shared values and complementary resources give us the editorial and technological expertise, data, analysis and depth of reporting to create a new model for the business weekly.”
BusinessWeek was one of the headliner publications for McGraw-Hill.
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Hugh Askew
Omaha, Nebraska, United States
caj1
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
smkovalinsky
New York, New York, United States
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (2)
at 15:42 on October 13th, 2009
BusinessWeek is an excellent publication. This acquisition will probably improve Bloomberg's website presence, through use of BW's existing web resources. Thanks for the news, Yuls!
at 16:09 on October 13th, 2009
thanks, caj1.