The Time Magazine, whose cover has shaped conversations around the world, has been sold to a Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur.
Meredith Corp. has signed a deal to sell the Time magazine for $190 million in cash to Marc Benioff, co-founder of Salesforce and his wife Lynne Benioff.
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The Benioffs are purchasing Time personally, and the transaction is unrelated to Salesforce.com, where Benioff is chairman, co-CEO and co-founder, reported ABC News.
As per the announcement by Meredith, the Benioffs will not be involved in the daily operations or journalistic decisions at Time and the current executive leadership team of the magazine will continue to take care of these.
Meredith president and CEO, Tom Harty, in a statement said, “We’re pleased to have found such passionate buyers in Marc and Lynne Benioff for the Time brand. For over 90 years, Time has been at the forefront of the most significant events and impactful stories that shape our global conversation.”
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The prospective sale is expected to close within 30 days.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Benioff said he and his wife were investing “in a company with tremendous impact on the world, one that is also an incredibly strong business. That’s what we’re looking for when we invest as a family.” Founded in 1923 by Yale graduates Henry Luce and Briton Hadden, Time was the first weekly news magazine in the United States.
The sale comes months after Des Moines-based Meredith, owner of Family Circle and Better Homes & Gardens, completed its purchase of Time Inc. for $2.8 billion.
Time-Warner spun off Time Inc. in 2014. The Time Inc. magazines, including Fortune and Sports Illustrated, were once hugely profitable but struggled as the magazine industry saw its advertising decimated in the digital era.
It is the latest publication to be bought by a billionaire on the West Coast. Medical entrepreneur Patrick Soon-Shiong bought the Los Angeles Times earlier this year. The Emerson Collective, an organization led by Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Steve Jobs, bought a majority stake in the Atlantic last year. Five years ago, Amazon founder and chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos bought The Washington Post.