McGraw-Hill Cos hired Evercore Partners Inc, the boutique investment bank founded by Roger Altman, to sell BusinessWeek magazine, a person close to the situation said.
The person declined to be identified because the information isn’t public. Spokesmen for McGraw-Hill and Evercore, which are both based in New York, declined to comment.
McGraw-Hill, also the owner of the Standard & Poor’s ratings company, is said to be seeking a buyer for BusinessWeek as the recession and competition from the Internet cut into publishers’ advertising sales. The weekly magazine was founded in 1929 and has almost 190 editorial staff, according to its Web site.
It has about 4.8 million readers weekly in 140 countries. “Magazines are vulnerable to the same decline in advertising revenue that has been hitting the newspaper industry,” said Tom Corbett, a Morningstar Inc. analyst in Chicago. “Because of that, the environment for sales of magazine properties is going to be pretty challenged.”
BusinessWeek posted a 30 per cent decline in second-quarter ad sales to $43.9 million, compared with a 22 per cent drop industrywide, according to Publishers Information Bureau data.
Total US advertising spending fell 12 per cent in the first quarter, led by tumbling demand in newspapers and magazines, after automakers and car dealerships slashed marketing budgets, Nielsen Co said in June.
The magazine, run by Editor-in-Chief Stephen Adler, was overhauled in 2007 and added stories on new products and personal finance in an effort to attract more readers and advertisers.
McGraw-Hill advanced 8 cents to $30.08 on July 10 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The stock has gained 30 per cent this year.
