• by October 3, 2005

DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN -- Is anyone else experiencing a severe case of déjà vu all over again? Just look at some recent media business news developments. Why just today one of our favorite media-savvy investment firms, Wasserstein & Co., announced it has closed on a $385 million deal to acquire the business publications and Web sites of Primedia. Wasserstein, you may recall, previously acquired the crown media jewel of Primedia - New York magazine - which it added to its growing portfolio of media properties, including Wall Street Journal wannabe The Daily Deal. Add to that certain niche publishing properties and trade publications, and Wasserstein's portfolio is beginning to look a lot like Primedia Lite, meaning Primedia without the financial overhang of About.com.

About.com, of course has found a new home at New York Times Co., and is being smartly integrated into their digital holdings, but more on that another time. What's really interesting about the re-aggregation of Primedia assets is that it follows a similar pattern within the media industry. Another prime example of corporate reincarnation is what's taking place within Dutch research giant VNU, which is suddenly looking more like the old Dun & Bradstreet.

VNU, of course owns Nielsen Media Research, ACNielsen and a bunch of other research, software and analytical businesses, already announced a multibillion dollar deal to acquire IMS Health, which along with Nielsen, and ACNielsen, were the three primary components of Dun & Bradstreet before that company broke up in a stock spin-off deal. That VNU would look to reassemble those pieces a decade later is interesting. But what's really interesting is that appear to be willing to transform itself into a latter day version of D&B in the process, selling off many of the assets that VNU had traditionally been known for. Those, of course, were publications, which apparently are less of a strategic component of VNU than they had been. A little over a year ago, VNU sold off its European directories business, raising more than a billion in cash, which is now being used to help fund the IMS acquisition.

But some unsupportive VNU shareholders - including its biggest, fund manger Fidelity - think IMS could prove to be a financial albatross that will diminish, not strengthen the long-term value of VNU's shares. VNU management, of course, thinks IMS - and its stronghold in the health marketing field - is just the thing for the future and appears willing to transform the company even further to make that a reality. According to reports, VNU might sell off certain non-strategic assets, initiate a stock repurchase program, and do other things that might appease its big institutional investors and get its stock pricing soaring. And what might those non-core assets be? Well in a former publishing company that's almost completely through a restructuring to transform itself into the world's leading marketing research company, that would seem to be its remaining publications: magazines like Adweek, Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter. The question is whether there is a market out there for such trade publications and if so, who would the likely buyer be? Hmm! Could it be Wasserstein? Why not, one of the other core components of the old Primedia was Media Central, a unit that included trade publications and Web sites focused on the media industry.