Billionaire Marc Benioff, the founder, and co-CEO of Salesforce and his wife Lynne personally buying Time Magazine for $190 million.
“The Benioff family will hold Time as a family investment,” Time’s editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal told his team after the deal was announced Sunday.
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The magazine will have nothing to do with Salesforce, the company that Marc founded in 1999. “Although they will not run the magazine, we are fortunate that Marc and Lynne will guide us as we set out to create a new company,” said Felsenthal.
In a statement by the US media group, Meredith said Benioff family “will not be involved in the day-to-day operations or journalistic decisions”.
I can’t imagine better stewards for @time than @Benioff and Lynne. Excited to begin this new chapter with them and our terrific team. https://t.co/PYoCIHfV4n https://t.co/A8dtDd2acY
— Edward Felsenthal (@efelsenthal) September 17, 2018
Meredith bought Time Magazine and the rest of Time Inc. last November. The company immediately announced that it would sell several titles including Time magazine.
Meredith confirmed the deal with Benioff already in March, hoping that the deal would be signed within two months, but it took more than expected.
As part of the deal with Benioff, Meredith will continue to provide “services such as marketing, advertising, purchasing raw materials and printing,” according to Meredith.
The company is still trying to sell three titles of former Time: Fortune, Money and Sports Illustrated, which Benioff does not buy, and a spokesman for the company said they are likely to be sold “in the near future.”
Marc Benioff who is worth $6.7 billion according to Forbes, and ranks No. 246 on Bloomberg list of billionaires, said in an email to CNN “As everyone knows, Time is a treasure chest of our history and culture. We have a deep respect for this organization, and we are proud that it is now another layer in our family investment portfolio.”
In 2017, Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Steve Jobs, acquired a majority stake in the Atlantic magazine. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post in 2013, for $250 million.
