RSSAscend Media Divests Another Division: What’s Next?
I was not totally surprised this morning to hear that Ascend Media had sold its Princeton, NJ-based health titles to Intellisphere. A few things, however, did surprise me about the transaction:
1. This is a case of an e-media company buying traditional media assets. This sort of bucks the paradigm that we’ve seen over the past…forever. I can’t think of a situation exactly like this occuring during my years of watching the business. Can anyone correct me on this?
2. When I got to the office this morning, a voice mail from Ascend CEO Vicki Masseria was waiting for me. The company, it seems, couldn’t wait to spread the news on this. I know that Vicki is a very busy person, especially the day after closing a big deal, yet she took time to give me and some of my friends at foliomag.com and btobonline.com a call. Why?
3. Perhaps because, according to Masseria, Ascend has no further plans for major divestments. Masseria seemed excited to be moving through this stage of the company. I’m not totally convinced that this is the case. First off, I think if some deus ex machina came down and offered VSS (parent to theminsider) and CCMP Capital Partners a nice offer, they would take it. Second, I still think there’s a chance that Advanstar will snap up all or part of Ascend. I know, I know: Advanstar is in a seperate fund from Ascend, and so working that little transaction might be complicated, but there is precedent. Chemical Week, an AI property, was also owned by a seperate VSS fund before AI bought it (AI is also parent to theminsider, and VSS is parent to AI). (Ps - When I mentioned this little theory to people at VSS, they told me that that was not in the works at all.)
Check out the original news report at minonline.com here.
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Intellisphere started as a print publisher. Their first title was MD Net Guide, which was a physician’s guide to the internet. While they have evolved into more than that and can be viewed as an e-media company now, they really started with traditional media assets.
I didn’t know that. thanks for the input, “joe”. ::wink wink::
I guess the languishing poll on the right looks a bit more appropriate.
Interesting - Intellisphere is owned by Mike Hennessy - brother to Jack Hennessy, who sold these properties to Ascend just 3 years ago yesterday. All in the family.
As far as going forward - seems like the assets remaining won’t support the debt Ascend took on to acquire Medical World. They’ve sold off, between Stagnito, Dental and now Intellisphere, 60 percent of what they purchased with MWC - yet recovered less than 30% of their purchase price. Doesn’t bode well for the future.
Jack Hennessy sells to Ascend who runs the business into the ground and three years later, when Jack’s non-compete ends, his brother, Mike, buys the money making portion of the business at a bargin price. Sounds like a plan. But, was Mike told everything?
How bad was the Ascend Healthcare business? It appears Intellisphere, the group that bought the remnants of the business Ascend purchased from Medical World, just closed 2 more titles.
That means 5 of the 8 healthcare titles Ascend purchased 3 years ago are now shuttered.