Advertising Age dissects Forbes' future

In the wake of the announcement last week that the parent company of Forbes magazine was selling a minority stake to investors Elevation Partners, Advertising Age assessed the future of the business magazine and its subsidiaries, including Forbes.com.

Among its conclusions: Forbes could hold an initial public offering in about seven years, or the minority partner could sell its stake to another investor. An unlikely scenario would be having the Forbes’ family repurchasing the minority stake.

Reporter Nat Ives wrote, “‘An IPO of Forbes.com would be a natural way for them to realize their gains,’ a rival publisher offered. ‘A pure play digital IPO will attract a higher valuation than one that includes a ‘legacy’ print business — so what becomes of Forbes the magazine? A few years out, do they even need the magazine?’

“Forbes Media and Elevation say each property is key to the other. ‘One of the things we believe in, that some of our brethren can’t emotionally grasp, is that print is the core of this expanding media universe,’ Mr. Forbes said. ‘Without print, we don’t have a business. Print is a critical platform for reaching this entrepreneurial community.’

“Even Jim Spanfeller, a good company man but also president-CEO of Forbes.com, said the magazine and the site are stronger together. ‘People use these two different products for two different things. The web at least for the foreseeable future is not going to be as facile and usable for those longer pieces as the print product.'”

Read more here.