If I was selling my house, and you wanted to buy it, and you offered me an acceptable amount of money, what would my argument be for selling the house with the caveat that you could not change the color of the exterior paint?

Well, I could say that the neighborhood has a certain look, and the color we use now perfectly matches that look.  I could say that all houses should be painted that color.   I could probably come up with a few other reasons, too, that made some sense.  But, no matter what I said, you would probably wonder, “if it’s my house, if I pay for it, why do I have to listen to him?”  Furthermore, if you really wanted the house, you might say, “I’ll agree to his conditions, and then paint it any damn color I want once I own it.”

You guessed it, kids, this is not about my (nonexistent) house.

Why are the Bancrofts demanding that Murdoch not govern The Wall Street Journal if he buys it?  Why can’t an owner do with a paper what he pleases?  Ideally, if the owner does a good job at giving the paper editorial independence and is smart about hiring good editors and good publishers, the paper should succeed and be a boon on society.  The owner should be rewarded with healthy business.  If the owner does a “bad” job at ownership, his reward will be a failing enterprise–and society will not benefit.  Hasn’t this luxury–the freedom to run their business as they see fit, to succeed or fail–been afforded to the Bancrofts for decades now?  Why shouldn’t the same luxury be extended to the new owner?

In fairness, it should.

But, this is The Wall Street Journal, one of the most respected papers in the country, if not the world.  And Murdoch has…well, a spotty track record when it comes to running papers.  I’m all for fairness, but I admire what the Bancrofts are trying to do–and I say trying, because I believe that, ultimately, they will be unsuccessful.  They are trying to protect a high quality product that benefits the public good in the face of fairness.  (Oh, and let’s not forget that they stand to become even richer than they are by this.)

What I think will happen when Murdoch buys the company: Murdoch will break promises as he sees fit, and, most likely, turn The WSJ to his advantage–politically and monetarily.

What I hope will happen: Murdoch will see that The WSJ is actually quite a good business if left largely alone, and just leverage its content to fuel the rest of his media empire.

If this week’s article in The New Yorker by Ken Auletta is to be believed, and Rupert Murdoch is successful in his bid to buy Dow Jones & Co. from the Bancroft family and the public, then the Wall Street Journal is about to become The New York Post, financial edition.  (This is not to purposefully belittle The New York Post, but the WSJ is one of the most respected papers in the world, and the Post is somewhere farther down on that list.)

First, read Auletta’s article.   Then come back.

Do you believe what he has to say about Murdoch?  I do.  It seems as if, to Murdoch, promises are meant to be broken and papers serve merely as soap boxes for their owners.  At least, that’s how he’s treated every other paper he’s owned.

No, he won’t mess with the editorial slant of the paper–that is, unless that slant is not one he agrees with.  See: The New York Post.  

Also, see this week’s writeup on the issue at minonline.

According to the terms of the 12% notes, Ziff Davis has to use about 80% of the proceeds from asset sales to pay off senior debt, which, at this point, is the 12% notes. The company can apply for a waiver on this payment if it wants to reinvest the money, but I doubt that this will happen. So, after ZD gets the full $150 million from the sale, it will have about $25 million left over after applying the money to various debt payments.

This is good news for the company. Read the rest of this entry »

I breathed a sigh of relief today when the Ziff Davis deal came through. I was nearly 100% sure, but, as we all know, nothing is ever certain, especially in M&A. Get the details of the deal at minonline.com. There will be full analysis in min’s b2b this week.

For now, some notes on the deal: Read the rest of this entry »

What’s still a rumor–though gaining steam, depending on the crowds you roll in–is that tomorrow Ziff Davis will make a “big announcement” and that that announcement will be the sale of its enterprise division to Insight Venture Partners, a New York-based private equity shop. We’ll see.

What’s not a rumor is that bond analysts and market insiders have been making valuations of the company and its sizeable debt (nearing $400 million right now) ever since the company officially embarked on its sales venture last summer. Read the rest of this entry »

A source tells me that Ziff Davis will be “making a big announcement” this Thursday.  See post below.

A friend today clued me into who is in the hunt for the Ziff Davis enterprise group (Baseline, CIO Insight, eWeek, and related Web sites, shows, etc). The buyer is a New York City-based private equity firm called Insight Venture Partners. IVP is primarily invested in four different industry sectors: application software, infrastructure software, Internet and new media, and software-enabled services. My source tells me that the deal is all but signed and that people close to the deal are surprised that it hasn’t happened yet–but are assured that it will. Read the rest of this entry »

Note: there has been an update on this story, which appears below.

I heard last night and today that Rich Reiff’s Advantage business media, a new platform started from Reed’s old New Jersey new product division, is getting-rid-of/losing 14 of its employees. To put this into perspective, Advantage had about 211 people when it was first formed, reduced to about 193 initially, and will have 178 after this recent set of departures.

Out of the others supposedly axed/leaving, I’ve heard these names:

Lori Eppel, the VP of finance

Rose Welsh, PR

Chris Zicker, an internal sales guy

Tim Canny, group publisher of the processing group

Steve Wirth, group publisher of the electronics group

Steve Koppleman, circulation director

Mike Botta, editorial director

Kay Christopher, a salesperson on one of the electronics books

Anita LaFond, an editor on Manufacturing.net

These are some serious people that are leaving. I’ve also heard rumors that different interested parties are eyeing certain books in the Advantage portfolio.

UPDATE

Since I wrote this post, I received a phone message from Rich Reiff, CEO of Advantage, who I did reach out to several times today. Right now, it’s 7:08 pm, Friday night.

In the message, Reiff corrected me and said that there are 180+ employees at Advantage due to an acquisition, and that Lori Eppel, the VP of finance is leaving of her own accord in August to live in Chicago with her family.

I regret the error and will continue to update you on the story to set the record straight.

One interesting fold in this story, a B2B media player pointed out to me today, is that tech publishers like IDG, Ziff Davis, and CMP are often “early adopters” in this industry.  Or, at least they have been seen that way–and rightfully–since the invasion of the Internet.

With this move, CMP Technology becomes much smaller (from about 1,100 employees to about 900), and much more online-focused.  Steve Weitzner, CEO, told me that he is looking to put resources in growth areas.  Even though online and face-to-face initiatives have been growing by double digits in the past few years:

“We’ve had double digit growth in online and events for some time, but we’ve been unable to feel like a growth company because we still had a lot of print.  This is an appropriate amount of print in the portfolio right now, and it allows us to put an appropriate focus in the business of online and events.  This does improve our margins, immediately,” says Weitzner.

Will other companies follow this example, and take a big block of resources out of print and put it behind online and face-to-face?

Media reports have pegged Questex and Canon Communications as possible suiters for Ascend’s Stagnito beverage group, which multiple sources have confirmed to me is being actively shopped. (One source says the deal is going to be done within a month.) My question: is it Canon Communications or Apprise Media, the parent company?

If you look at Canon’s portfolio, you can see that food and beverage is not much of a fit–plastics, manufacturing, pharma, some medical product stuff. And, in fact, several sources have confirmed that it is indeed Apprise and not Canon that is the possible suitor.

Other possible suitors include BNP Media, the massive B2B company that owns top books in food processing. Many of their titles are directly competitive with Stagnito titles. Virgo publishing was another name I heard floating around, but some of my sources have speculated that Virgo is not one of the suitors. Virgo also competes head-to-head with Stagnito.

I’ve also heard there is some private equity that is looking at the company–and this comes as no surprise–but I don’t have any concrete leads on to which group it might be. I’ll keep you updated as information comes in.

What Will Become of Ascend?

I dug up a press release on the site of my parent company, Veronis Suhler Stevenson, going back to March 2003. At that time, VSS took a stake in Ascend along with JP Morgan Partners (which has since become CCMP Capital and is still part of the ownership group). In the release, VSS restates Ascends publicly acknowledged goals:

“Its stated business plan is to build a diversified business-to-business media powerhouse to reach revenues in excess of $100 million.”

Once Stagnito is gone, Ascend will be healthcare-focused. (Sources tell me that this is the buzz inside the company–that the divestment is intended to focus the company’s attention on health.) Diversified is the key word here. This then begs the question, what will happen to the rest of Ascend? In 2002, when Cam Bishop and Dan Altman formed the company, Altman told min’s b2b that “Our goal is three to five years out,” says Altman. “By the time we are up and running the economy will be too.”

Well, it’s been five years. Five years and three months, to be exact.