Fortune could become a high-end publication under new owner

Joe Pompeo of Vanity Fair writes that Fortune magazine, currently for sale by Meredith along with Money, could become a high-end publication once it changes hands.

Pompeo writes, “Among media insiders, the Fortune sale in particular has provoked a rather tenacious piece of gossip: that Salesforce C.E.O. Marc Benioff either was, or still is, or had been but is no longer, in the mix. Benioff is a regular character in Fortune’s coverage and is said to have a solid rapport with the editors there, and the prospect of a friendly billionaire who knows the publication well was appealing to staffers. ‘People were, for obvious reasons, extremely pleased to hear that,’ one insider told me. (‘We don’t comment on rumors,’ a Salesforce rep told me.) Fortune, for its part, has a robust and lucrative events component, which makes it an attractive buy. As far as the print product goes, two people familiar with the plan told me it involves rebooting the magazine as a boutique proposition with a higher price point and a more luxury feel, harkening back to Fortune’s conception, when Henry Luce created it in 1929, as a ‘distinguished and de luxe’ accoutrement for the ‘Super-Class’ —’a barrier so high that only the reader both enthusiastic and well-to-do will vault it,’ as Luce famously wrote in a letter to advertisers. ‘The bottom line is that they want to go to a higher-value product,’ one source said.”

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