Marc Benioff Bought Time Magazine For $190 Million – He Did Not Buy Sports Illustrated Or Fortune… And For Good Reason
ByJoseph Gibsonon September 21, 2018inArticles›Billionaire News
“We’ll hear and see what Benioff does with Time over the coming months. The best-case scenario is a Bezos/Washington Post scenario, where he reinvigorates the aging property with a combination of money, aggressive growth goals and a relatively hands-off approach. The downside: Even a billionaire may be frustrated at how difficult it is to turn around a property that peaked decades ago.”
Charley Gallay/Getty Images
How difficult? You never know these days when a formerly stagnant property becomes newly hot stuff, but for the time being, recent revenue figures for formerly lucrative print institutions are not particularly sunny. Take Sports Illustrated (“please!,” its current owners might say), a former powerhouse that still has plenty of popular familiarity and a decent sized cultural footprint. Here are some revenue figures for the last three years, via the property’s bankers at Houlihan Lokey:
-2015: $239 million
-2016: $212.3 million
-2017: $184.8 million
That’s a steady decline, and unfortunately par for the course in most of the magazine industry these days. Meredith Corp is reportedly seeking out $150 million for its Sports Illustrated holdings, but so far no Benioff or Bezos-like figures have stepped up to the plate.
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