Forbes Media owner could be selling majority stake

Forbes April 19 2016 Acquisitive Chinese conglomerate HNA Group is in talks to buy a controlling stake in the owner of the publisher of Forbes magazine, reports Julie Zhu of Reuters.

Zhu reports, “Hong Kong-based investor group Integrated Whale Media Investments (IWM), which holds 95 percent of Forbes Media, is also in talks with another Chinese media firm and is scouting for more potential buyers for most or all of its stake, said one of the sources, who declined to be identified as the talks are confidential.

“Reuters was not able to confirm the names of the other possible bidders.

“HNA, ranked 353rd in the 2016 Fortune Global list of the world’s biggest 500 companies, has been in discussions for a couple of weeks with IWM for a deal worth at least $400 million, said the source.”

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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.