• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, July 13, 2009

One of the nation's leading business magazines is up for sale, according to various reports, which reported Monday that McGraw-Hill has put BusinessWeek on the auction block.

The company faces a very difficult market, with potential buyers discouraged by the difficulty of borrowing money and the generally weak state of the consumer magazine business.

McGraw-Hill, which owns a variety of businesses covering education, professional training and business information, has hired Evercore Partners to oversee the sale of BusinessWeek. In February Evercore advised Sirius-XM on a two-phase capital investment by Liberty Media; in March, it advised the Copley Press on its sale of the San Diego Union Tribune.

Any potential buyer is certain to be aware of the steep downturn in magazine advertising overall, and business magazines in particular. In the second quarter, BusinessWeek's ad pages fell 34.3% in 2Q, compared to the same period in 2008, for a full-year decline of 36.8% in the first half of 2009.

The last couple years have seen closures of some big business titles, including Time Inc.'s Business 2.0 and Conde Nast's ill-fated new entry to the arena, Portfolio. Ad sales for the magazine plunged 30 percent in the second quarter to $43.9 million, steeper than the industry average of 22 percent, Publishers Information Bureau reported.