Timothy Dumas of Greenwich magazine profiles Forbes Media chief Mike Perlis, who was brought in by the Forbes family to turn around its operation.
Dumas writes, “But what differentiates Forbes from the competitors? ‘Fortune and Forbes compete in print pretty powerfully,’ Perlis says. ‘But we’re the market share leader.’ This is partly so, he believes, because of Forbes’s emphasis on personalities and entrepreneurship, where Fortune focuses on large corporations — as its own signature list, the Fortune 500, suggests. Businessweek, being a weekly (Fortune and Forbes publish biweekly), is more beholden to up-to-the-minute news coverage. ‘But none of the classic competitors have had any kind of a meaningful digital presence,’ Perlis claims. ‘Fortune’s trying to establish that now, but just now. Bloomberg bought Businessweek for a buck, and they’re publishing it vigorously, but their web presence is pretty minimal. So we see a lot of competition in the broader marketplace of websites and branded content — but we’re killing it.’
“Perhaps this is the reason why, last July, the Forbes family sold a majority stake in their company to a consortium of Asian investors called Integrated Whale Media Investments. Perlis, D’Vorkin, et al had done such a good job of pumping up Forbes’s value that conditions had become ripe to sell. The deal was rumored to be worth a robust $475 million. (Forbes, as a privately held company, does not disclose its numbers.) Perlis describes the family’s decision to sell as ‘estate planning,’ and it does seem they were looking ahead to the day when family participation in the business would be nil. Of the fourth generation of media Forbeses, only Steve’s daughter Moira is vigorously involved. (Of the third generation, Steve Forbes remains chairman and keeps the title of editor-in-chief, and both he and Tim are on the board of the new company.)
“The sale, so far, seems to be a win-win-win proposition. With a new infusion of capital and potential for even faster growth abroad, the House of Forbes, far from falling, could find itself in the pink of health for decades. Elevation recouped its investment and then some: When the details of the deal got worked out in the fall, Bono sent the Guinness and the champagne that now sits before Perlis on the coffee table. ‘Congratulations from your less visible but very appreciative Irish partner,’ the singer’s note read.”
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