Bulk of Forbes purchase coming from foreign investors

The majority stake buyout of Forbes announced last week will be funded primarily from foreign investors, as Austin Russell, the 28-year-old American CEO of electric vehicle tech company Luminar Technologies, plans to put in only $10 million, reports Sara Fischer of Axios.

Fischer reports, “The relatively small personal financial commitment from Russell supports Axios’ previous reporting that the deal to buy Forbes, which was hastily announced last Friday evening, is structured in a way that obscures how much money foreign investors may put in.

Putting Russell forward as the face of a deal largely funded by foreign investors could help Forbes’ owners get the deal past regulators.
While it’s not unusual for foreign investors or companies to buy U.S. media brands, it is unusual to structure a deal to make it look like a U.S. citizen is buying an asset, when most of the money being used to fund the deal is originating from foreign investors.”

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Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.