Acquisitions

Hearst is set to buy the magazines published outside of France by Paris-based Lagardère for about $900 million, the New York Post reports.

Lagardère’s, whose U.S. division Hachette Filipacchi publishes such titles as Elle, Woman’s Day, and Car and Driver, and Hearst, which publishes Cosmopolitan and Esquire, among a number of other magazines, are expected to announce the deal as early as today.

The deal, which would bring under one roof the Hachette media group and Hearst magazines, would make Hearst the clear leader in the international magazine business, so, watch out Time Inc.

But in case you think this is great news for the magazine business, think again: the Post reports that the merger is expected to result in a massive bloodletting of 30 percent or more of the work force. No word yet on where the layoffs are expected to occur.

It’s time to take stock of what is left standing at AOL after the massive cleaning taking place in light of the merger with Huffington Post.

Pre-merger, if you compared AOL and Huffington Post section by section, there was a considerable amount of overlap between the two sites. Post-merger, it’s up to Arianna Huffington to decide which sections stay and which sections go, based on whether the AOL version or the Huffington Post version is more profitable or promising.

The site slashing has begun. Forbes reports:

All told, some 30 brands will be “integrated” into other properties… Among those to be absorbed are Politics Daily (folded into HuffPost Politics), Walletpop (folded into Daily Finance), Urlesque (folded into HuffPost Comedy), Luxist (folded into Stylelist) and TV Squad (folded into AOL TV).

But all the merger casualties are not just on the AOL side; as Kara Swisher notes, “It goes both ways, though–the Huffington Post’s travel site will be closed in favor of AOL’s stronger offering in that arena.” Other popular AOL brands, such as its PopEater celebrity site and its StyleList fashion site, will keep their names but no longer exist as separate destination sites.

According to a company press release, Philadelphia and Boston magazine publisher Metrocorp has acquired Foobooz – a Philly-focused foodie favorite blog (try saying that five times fast).  Foobooz founder and editor Arthur Etchells will be added to Philadelphia’s staff as a full-time digital product manager and will manage Foobooz with the help of magazine editor Kirsten Henri.  Metrocorp president David Lipson emphasized Foobooz’s value to the company as well as readers:

Since the very first issue of Philadelphia magazine, providing information to readers about dining out has been one of our core strengths.  In this great food city, dining out continues to be our audience’s favorite source of entertainment. The addition of Foobooz to the Philadelphia magazine content offerings allows us to bolster our position as the leading source for people to figure out where they want to eat in this region.

Following the addition of Foobooz, Philadelphia’s current blog — The Restaurant Club — will serve as an event series and offer special dining opportunities for visitors.  Metrocorp will debut Fooboz in the Boston area by 2011 and has plans to launch the blog nationwide in the future.

Communications and marketing company Engine USA announced yesterday that it has acquired Deep Focus, a full-service interactive marketing agency based in Brooklyn.  Formed in February 2010, Engine USA is the New York branch of the Engine Group, which was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in London, UK.  The acquisition follows Engine’s announcement last week that an affiliate of global private investment firm H.I.G. Capital had invested $100 million in the company.

Said Peter Scott, Chairman of Engine Group and Engine USA in a statement: ”the acquisition of Deep Focus is the first we have made following the announcement of the investment in Engine by H.I.G. It reflects our long stated strategy of taking Engine into key global markets,”  which include the USA, China, Brazil and parts of Europe.

Read more

Folio: reports that Northstar Travel Media has acquired ProMedia.travel, a media company aimed at the “global corporate travel management market” and founded in 2006. The company publishes a quarterly magazine, Procurement.travel, and three e-newsletters: The Beat, Management.travel and The Transnational. Under the terms of the acquisition, the entire team will now join Northstar Travel Media.

Promotions and new roles include ProMedia.travel president and CEO Tim Reid going on to lead the commercial travel group at Northstar. Promedia.travel’s former chief content officer, Jay Campbell, will now become the BTN Group’s editorial director.

Arnie Weissmann will remain Northstar’s vice president and editorial director for the Travel Weekly Group, as will Lori Cioffi where the Meetings Group is concerned.

The attempt by Emmis Communications CEO and founder Jeff Smulyan to take his company private is over.

The company issued a statement yesterday saying Indianapolis-based radio, TV and magazine publishing company will remain public.

The statement indicates that the deal fell through because of Smulyan’s partner Alden Global Capital, and legal action may be taken against Alden.

“Last month, Emmis Communications and Alden Global Capital agreed, subject to completion of definitive documentation, to terms that would allow a group of preferred shareholders that previously did not support the exchange offer and amendments to agree to support the transaction. It should be noted that Alden Global Capital was a willing and active participant in the negotiations and materially improved the terms of their proposed investment,” said part of the statement by Emmis.

Four years ago, Smulyan made a bid to take Emmis private at $15.25 per share of common stock.

This year’s offer, announced May 25, was for $2.40 a share for the common stock, and an exchange of new Emmis debt for the preferred stock. However, several shareholders sought a better deal, to which Alden wouldn’t bulge.

Cygnus Communications today announced that it had sold trade titles Fabricating & Metalworking, Industrial Machinery Digest and Total Industrial Plant Solutions. All three titles will now be owned by their publishers.

Fabricating & Metalworking goes to Alliance Communications, while the other two titles go to Source360 Media.

“I grew up on the shop floor,” said Tony Morrison, leader of Alliance Communications and founding member of Fabricating & Metalworking.. “Fabricating & Metalworking has one of the industry’s strongest communities with the largest circulation of any publication covering metalforming, welding, metalcutting, tooling and workholding, inspection and safety in every issue. I’m looking forward to the opportunities that lie ahead for the brand and Alliance Communications.”

Source360 Media’s William Strickland, said, “I have enjoyed working at Cygnus Business Media, but as the affinity groups were being created, we recognized an opportunity. Tony and I approached management about the possibility of our purchasing the brands rather than allowing them to possibly be acquired by another company. “There are enormous possibilities for Tony and me to grow these brands and I feel fortunate to be given this opportunity.”

The Washington Post Co. has officially announced what reporters have been reporting all day: The company is selling Newsweek to electronics tycoon Sidney Harman.

Press release after the jump.

Read more

Multiple news outlets are reporting that electronics tycoon Sydney Harman has inked a deal to buy Newsweek from The Washington Post Co.

“It’s official: Sidney Harman, the businessman who made his fortune selling stereo equipment, has secured a deal to buy Newsweek from the Washington Post Co.,” writes Nat Ives of Advertising Age.

The New York Times earlier today reported that the deal would go down today. Politico came out with a similar report this morning.

The Times says:

The financial details of the sale were not known, though one person with knowledge of Mr. Harman’s bid said last week that he would pay $1 in exchange for absorbing Newsweek’s considerable financial liabilities.

We’ve called the Post Co. for confirmation and will update when we hear back.

Update: paidContent has confirmed the Ad Age report.

Update 2: Shares of The Washington Post Co. are up 2.8% at $432.11 in midafternoon trading.

Update 3: NYT‘s Media Decoder blog has a preemptive reaction piece featuring Northwestern University journalism professor Charles Whitaker.

“It always seemed clear to me that the person or people who bought Newsweek were going to have an egotistical or emotional reason for stepping in — that it wasn’t going to be purely a business decision. Because if you looked at the numbers, it just didn’t make sense,” he said.

Update 4: Citing “a source close to the situation,” Keith Kelly at the New York Post is reporting that Newsweek editor Jon Meacham has told Harman that he’s ready to step down as soon as Harman finds a successor.

Mike Allen of Politico reports in today’s “Playbook” email newsletter, brought to you by the University of Phoenix, that a sale of The Washington Post Co.’s Newsweek to stereo tycoon Sidney Harman is “IMMINENT,” except that it might not be.

Allen, in characteristically breathless terms (boldface emphasis added; all-caps emphasis in original):

SIDNEY HARMAN, husband of Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), is the GALLOPING FAVORITE to buy Newsweek from The Washington Post Company and an announcement is IMMINENT, top sources tell Playbook. Donald E. Graham, chairman of the board, is personally deciding the winning bid for the family jewel, and has concluded that Dr. Harman would provide more continuity than either of the other two remaining competing bids, according to a family friend familiar with his thinking. The sources warn that no deal like this is done until it’s done. But Harman won over Graham by pledging to retain the majority of Newsweek’s 350 employees. The magazine’s print edition will continue, and Harman’s politics are safely centrist.

So now we can add Politico to a list of news outlets who have reported that Harman is a favorite in the Newsweek race. The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal both reported a similar, if less confidently worded (and subsequently hedged) version of this story last week.

(h/t “On Media’s Blog” at Politico)