A couple of months ago, Felix Publishing unloaded Maxim, Stuff and Blender for some $250M to Quadrangle. The company’s fundamentals were eroding as print advertisers fled online, pursuing readers. Men don’t read magazines, I learned pretty quickly once I entered the media business. I hate to say it, but apart from the odd flight or think tank reading material, magazines are so out amongst men.
Anyway, when I competed against Maxim in the early 2000s as a member of the executive of an online lad mag, I thought it was a matter of time before Felix Dennis made us an offer we could not refuse. For whatever reason, he never called. Neither did his bankers. Over time the fundamentals of print got too shaky, and their corresponding online business was not developed enough, so they sold, instead. While Felix had hoped his assets would fetch $750M, they got but a third of that, $250M or so, in a sale that was handled by Allen & Co.
Now, it’s Emap’s turn. Emap has a lot more than lad mags, but they do one one of the grand daddies of men’s magazine: FHM. Word comes that they too want to unload some of their assets, and waiting in the wings is APAX, another private equity firm.
Really odd thing about the private equity blokes is that they buy magazines to run them as magazines. I’d do quite an overhaul and position them more robustly online. But, no one is giving me a blank check to do that… so who cares.
Bottom line, we sold our company for a mere $13.5M. Had either Emap or Dennis Publishing paid a penny more, they would have positioned themselves to reach men online. Instead, they music is slowing down and they’re finding that finding a mating partner ain’t as easy as the articles in their lad mags suggest.
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