Perelman invests in business newspaper

Investor and philanthropist Raymond Perelman has made an investment in Region’s Business, a weekly “Journal of Business and Politics” started in a Plymouth Meeting office by former Philadelphia Metro publisher James McDonald last summer, reports Joe DiStefano of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

DiStefano writes, “McDonald and Perelman won’t say how much Perelman invested. Regions Business, written by freelancers and edited by a staff headed by Karl Smith, formerly of AOL’s Philadelphia Patch Web site and Calkins Media’s PhillyBurbs.com Web site, ‘will expand circulation’ by sending free papers to targeted readers, boosting circulation and advertising efforts, and adding a mobile app, McDonald told me.

“The paper’s ‘investigative reporting will focus primarily on state and local government,’ McDonald added.

“McDonald published Philadelphia Metro, a free daily distributed at Septa stations, in 2000-04, and later published Journal newspaper in Washington, D.C., before selling the business to Philip Anschutz’s Examiner network, among his other news business ventures.

“‘We think the mix of public policy and business is the right mix to reach a mix of influencers and senior executives in the area,’ McDonald told me. He aims to be ‘non-partisan’ but also ‘business-friendly.’ He says he hopes to boost circulation to 17,500, which would be ‘significantly above the Philadelphia Business Journal,’ owned by American City Business Journals.