January 25, 2023
'Time' Marches On, This Time To Salesforce Founder Benioff
- by Joe Mandese @mp_joemandese, September 17, 2018
Storied newsweekly Time magazine has turned another page, announcing a deal late Sunday that it has been acquired by Salesforce founder-CEO Marc Benioff.
Benioff and his wife Lynne are paying $190 million to buy the title from Meredith Corp., which acquired parent Time Inc. for $1.8 billion less than a year ago.
The deal is expected to close within 30 days, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news.
“The power of Time has always been in its unique storytelling of the people & issues that affect us all & connect us all,” Benioff confirmed int a tweet Sunday night, adding: “A treasure trove of our history & culture. We have deep respect for their organization & honored to be stewards of this iconic brand.”
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Time magazine, which was founded by Henry Luce in 1923, became the flagship of the world’s biggest and most powerful magazine publishing company -- Time Inc. -- during the heyday of the magazine publishing industry.
Following its acquisition, Meredith almost immediately began signaling plans to divest of the title.
Reactions in social media were generally positive, with some likening it to Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos’ personal acquisition of The Washington Post.
How the Benioff family will manage Time magazine remains to be seen. Benioff is known to be a Democrat who supported Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential bid.
The debut issue of Time was published March 3, 1923.
If this closes as stated above, the price Meredith receives for one property will be a bit over 10 percent of tne purchase price for the entire company. It is also about 25 percent of the investment made by the Koch family PE fund. Nice return, in less than a year since the Time Inc. acquisition. For the short term, it seems like Meredith stakeholders and the Koch PE fund are quickly recouping the original investment, especially if Hoch PE applies any of the proceeds to the original cash outlay for Time Inc. They stated they were staying out of the magazine business, so if they work out an arrangement to exit the investment quickly, they will have kept their word.