Categories: OLD Media Moves

American Banker, Bond Buyer are for sale

Luisa Beltran of PEHub reports that Source Media, the parent company of American Banker and The Bond Buyer, is for sale.

Beltran writes, “The Jordan Edmiston Group is advising, the persons say. New York-based SourceMedia, which publishes American Banker and The Bond Buyer, produces EBITDA in the mid-teens, two bankers say. However, another source says the company’s EBITDA has been falling and is actually around $10 million.

“SourceMedia will likely sell for around 5x to 6x EBITDA, one banker says.

“‘We cannot confirm nor deny,’ says Firas El Amine, an Investcorp MD, when asked about the SourceMedia auction.

“SourceMedia represents a rather long hold, nearly eight years, for Investcorp, a Bahrain private equity firm. Investcorp acquired SourceMedia, when it was known as Thomson Media, for $350 million in 2004. (The seller was Thomson Corp. which went on to buy Reuters in 2007 and formed Thomson Reuters, the publisher of peHUB).

“Investcorp split SourceMedia in two businesses and sold one half, Accuity Holdings, last year to Reed Elsevier for about $530.1 million. For Investcorp, the Accuity sale generated a return of nearly two times the cash it put into SourceMedia, The Wall Street Journal reported.

“The auction of SourceMedia is early, sources say, and first-round bids have yet to be received. Strategics will likely not be interested in SourceMedia, two bankers say. Instead, private equity is expected to dominate the auction. ‘Likely buyers will be private equity funds who already own a platform in B2B publishing,’ one banker says.”

Read more here.

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.

Recent Posts

WSJ seeks a logistic bureau chief

The Wall Street Journal is looking for an editor to lead its coverage of logistics…

5 hours ago

WSJ seeks a health care reporter

The Wall Street Journal seeks an enterprising and ambitious reporter to cover the intersection of…

5 hours ago

WSJ seeks a trade reporter in DC

The Wall Street Journal is seeking a reporter in Washington, DC, to chronicle one of…

5 hours ago

Reuters hires WSJ’s Hirtenstein

Reuters has hired Wall Street Journal reporter Anna Hirtenstein. She will start next month. Hirtenstein has…

11 hours ago

Moody joins Bloomberg as Americas news director

Caroline Gage, head of the Americas for Bloomberg News, sent the following announcement to staff:…

12 hours ago

Forbes senior editor Feldman switches to health care

Forbes senior editor Amy Feldman is now covering health care. She had been covering industrial innovation and…

12 hours ago