Magazines
Bid day comes and goes for BW
By Louisa Ada Seltzer
Sep 16, 2009 - 8:08:37 AM

Yesterday was the deadline for bids on BusinessWeek … or not.

The deadline has apparently been extended, amid chatter that Bloomberg, one of the few news organizations to avoid massive job cuts over the past two years, has joined the ranks of interested buyers.

As of now, the magazine’s future is far from settled. It could be sold over the next few months. Or it could stay in the McGraw-Hill fold and face severe staff cuts. Or it could turn into an online-only publication.

Terry McGraw, CEO of McGraw-Hill, refused to rule anything out yesterday talking to reporters.

“The best thing I can say is we wanted to explore everything,” McGraw said, days after boasting that the publication had attracted the interest of more than 90 parties.

Realistically, the number of bidders will be much smaller, perhaps a half dozen. The deadline delay is being attributed to Bloomberg, the financial publisher that got serious about a bid only last week, despite weeks of speculation that it would be the best fit for BusinessWeek.

Bloomberg representatives met with McGraw-Hill on Monday, according to BusinessWeek’s Jon Fine, and the company is expected to submit a bid in the next few days.

Other parties still interested in the publication include Zelnick Media, Joe Mansueto and Platinum Equity. New York owner Bruce Wasserstein has apparently dropped out.

There has been speculation that perhaps a dark-horse candidate will swoop in at the last moment.

That’s probably little comfort to the BusinessWeek staff, which has experienced deep cuts along with the rest of the industry over recent years and would likely be slashed some more by any new owner besides Bloomberg, which has actually added new jobs in that span.

BusinessWeek lost an estimated $40 million last year, and ad pages for the magazine are off by just over a third this year, according to the Publishers Information Bureau.



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