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Time Warner Returns From The Dead: ABC Warner Buys Time Inc.

AnonusAnonus
edited 2017-11-29 08:14:41 in Chocolate
November 26, 2017

Denver-based ABC Warner today agreed to acquire Time Inc., the New York publisher of major magazines such as the eponymous Time, Fortune and Sports Illustrated, for $2.191 billion in cash. ABC Warner will pay $22 a share for the company, a 24% premium over Friday's closing price.

For ABC Warner leader Anonus Utilis, the deal represents the culmination of a long-held desire to become a force in the magazine business. The company had a brief stint as the owner of TV Guide magazine that ended in shuttering the print edition as efforts to operate a modernized, multimedia iteration of the brand, including a website and TV network, encountered growing pains. And there is, of course, Utilis's long-held envy of Condé Nast, the glitzy publisher of such titles as Vogue, Vanity Fair, and GQ. ABC Warner beat out a competing bid from an alliance between the Meredith Corporation and the Koch brothers.

Oddly, this is not Utilis's first pass at buying Time Inc. In 2013, ABC attempted to acquire Time Warner, to no avail; by the time ABC succeeded in buying the company in 2014, Time Inc. had been spun off.

"Welcome back to the family, I guess," said Utilis. "I'm proud to take on the best magazine brands in the world."

ABC's plans for the Time brands entail plenty of multimedia efforts, something the publisher has been struggling with. It also revives one of the original guiding principles of Time Warner. Utilis hopes that his company's efforts to coordinate brands and units go more smoothly than the bumpy "media convergence" of the '90s.

The deal also preserves Time Inc. as an independent publisher. The Meredith deal would have seen the number of major magazine publishers in the U.S. shrink from four to three.

As for this piece's headline, Utilis ruled out reviving the "Time Warner" name, and held up a fake severed head with "TWX" written across its forehead.

This article was published three days late.
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Comments

  • vtkvtk
    embrace the confusion
    How do you keep all the facts of your alternate universe straight? Or are there glaring continuity errors that nobody notices because nobody can keep the facts straight?
  • AnonusAnonus
    I've learned to tolerate drama...except on the boat
    The continuity can be revised as I see fit

    I keep this stuff straight mostly through memory. I used to list it more consistently but my interest in the whole thing fluctuates, and with it, the organization. After buying Time Warner, most of the company's deals were done to fill perceived gaps in the portfolio (e.g. buying MGM), or to bolster strengths and keep competitors from doing so (e.g. DreamWorks Animation)
  • Ali_RozAli_Roz
    More like THIS THREAD returns from the dead, am I right?
  • AnonusAnonus
    I've learned to tolerate drama...except on the boat
    update:

    • ABC Warner broke into six and several of those pieces reunited to make it three
    • Time Inc. broke back off and merged with Simon & Schuster
  • Imipolex GImipolex G
    Touch the cow. Do it now.
    Time Warner is my favorite Warner sibling
  • Ali_RozAli_Roz
    edited 2022-03-12 04:26:45
    Why not reunite all of ABC Time Warner, then buy AOL, and make it ABCAOL Time Warner?
  • AnonusAnonus
    I've learned to tolerate drama...except on the boat
    Ali_Roz said:

    Why not reunite all of ABC Time Warner, then buy AOL, and make it ABCAOL Time Warner?

    AOL Time Warner must never be reunited

    In part because digital media outfits like the shadow of AOL are highly unattractive assets
  • lee4hmzlee4hmz
    ⚠ THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS
    if you bring the two chaos stones together, it will bring about the end of the world (or at least the end of the stock market)
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