Marc and Lynne Benioff have acquired the Time Magazine from Meredith corp who had just recently completed the purchase of Time along with the other publications of Time Inc. in January for $1.8 billion. Marc Benioff is one of the four co-founders of Salesforce and is currently the chairman and co-CEO of Salesforce.com Inc.
The Benioffs have purchased the Time for $190 million in cash as a personal investment and is unrelated to Salesforce. The Time deal is set to close in the next 30 days. The Benioffs and Meredith have agreed that the Benioffs won’t be involved in the day-to-day operations or journalistic decisions for the magazine. Those decisions will continue to be made by Time’s current leadership team.
“We’re pleased to have found such passionate buyers in Marc and Lynne Benioff for the Time brand,” the president and CEO of Meredith, Tom Harty said in a statement. “For over 90 years, Time has been at the forefront of the most significant events and impactful stories that shape our global conversation. We know Time will continue to succeed and is in good hands with the Benioffs.”
Meredith who are known for their publications such as Better Homes & Gardens, after acquiring the Time Inc. in January soon put some of the business’s biggest titles up for sale – Fortune, Money, Sports Illustrated and Time itself. The negotiations for the sale of the other three publications are being continued. When asked the reason behind the sales, Meredith management said that the audiences and advertisers are different for Fortune, Sports Illustrated, Money and Time than most of their other magazines.
