Penske Media invested $100 million in Vox Media in 2023. Given that Penske Media was not part of a round of financing, and that it was the last (public) investor in the company, the first cash to come from a sale could be earmarked for Penske.
If the deal were structured with a standard preferred equity arrangement, this would likely be the dynamic. In that case, Vox Media would find itself divested of its best brands without any cash to show for it.
Such a situation would likely spur Vox Media to sell the rest of its portfolio to a suite of individual bidders, in the same way that other media companies with broad portfolios—G/O Media, Recurrent Ventures, Condé Nast—have lately taken to whittling them down through a series of sales and spinoffs.
Capital One recently kicked the tires on Eater, according to Puck. Several other bidders are currently submitting offers to Vox Media, according to multiple sources. Vox Media has the luxury of not needing to sell anything right now. But once it parts ways with its premiere assets that dynamic could change rapidly.
Talking Heds
Cut and Paste, and Jezebel (SCOOP): When Paste Magazine acquired the beloved independent outlets Jezebel and Splinter from G/O Media almost three years ago, I was thrilled but skeptical. I was happy to see the brands return to publishing, but the commercial strategy seemed underbaked. Given their subject matter—feminist commentary and left-wing politics, respectively—both Jezebel and Splinter were infamously difficult to monetize through open-exchange advertising, but their new owner, Josh Jackson, offered no convincing alternative for their monetization. Now, the wheels appear to be coming off. In recent weeks, Paste has laid off staff, shuttered its gaming vertical, and parted ways with longtime Jezebel editor in chief Lauren Tousignant.
Insiders say the trouble started in September, when Jezebel published a piece, titled We Paid Some Etsy Witches to Curse Charlie Kirk, two days before Kirk was assassinated. The article, unsurprisingly, generated a traffic windfall, but it also prompted the money man behind Paste, Bill Sagan, to get more involved in his investment. Former staff are now openly pleading for another buyer to intervene and give Jezebel, Splinter, and their sister site AV Club a new home. When reached for comment, Jackson pointed to a handful of new hires the outlets have made in recent weeks, including Erik Adams and Monica Castillo.
Ziff Davis Buys Again: On Friday, the digital media firm Ziff Davis snapped up four media brands from Recurrent Ventures: the home design titles Dwell, Domino, and Business of Home, as well as the 154-year-old science publication PopSci. The company declined to share the purchase price, but an M&A source familiar with the space pegged the tie-up as likely under $20 million in total. The purchase is the latest in a string of acquisitions from Ziff Davis, which in recent years has also scooped up CNET, theSkimm, and Lifehacker. The tie-up is notable because it furthers Ziff Davis’ reputation as one of the last remaining buyers of digital media brands, as many investors are looking to exit the space. When I mentioned this observation to Ziff Davis CEO Vivek Shah in the past, he reframed it, saying, “What do I know that they don’t?” For Recurrent Ventures, the spin-off aims to focus its portfolio on its two strongest divisions, auto and military, according to CEO Andrew Perlman. As such, the two titles in the Recurrent portfolio that do not fit that description, Bob Vila and Futurism, might soon find themselves on the block.
