An investor group led by former Warner
Music Group CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. has withdrawn its bid to acquire Time Inc. The Wall Street Journal first reported the news Wednesday.
The group also included media
executives Ynon Kreiz and Len Blavatnik. Reuters reports the group found the Time Inc. asking price too high.
Late last year, the group offered an $18 per share bid, which was
rejected by Time Inc.’s board. The takeover bid valued the company at nearly $1.8 billion.
Time Inc., which publishes Time, Sports Illustrated and People
magazine, asked potential buyers to submit acquisition offers by this week, after receiving interest from Meredith and Bronfman.
Time Inc. hired Bank of America Corp. and Morgan
Stanley to field offers after rejecting Bronfman's bid.
advertisement
advertisement
There are reportedly at least three other companies that have expressed interesting in buying America’s largest magazine
publisher. Once the offers are in, the board will decide whether to go forward with a sale, likely depending on how the suitors value the company.
It is also possible the board will
decide to sell individual magazine titles, rather than the entire Time Inc. business, sources told Bloomberg.
Time Inc. was approached by Meredith Corp. about a possible
merger
in January. A source told Publishers Daily at the time that Time Inc. felt no pressure to look for buyers.
Meredith originally proposed a merger with Time Inc. back in
2013, when Time was preparing to separate from parent company Time Warner. Nothing came of the proposal.
At least one of the other three bidders is a publicly traded company,
according to one of Bloomberg’s sources.
Time Inc. declined to comment.
Despite a 10% dip in print advertising revenue for the fourth quarter of
2016, Time Inc.'s total ad revenue in 2016 increased 3% -- or $57 million -- to $1.71 billion compared to the previous year.