And he's only getting $350 mil?
FROM NEWSMAX.COM
Monday, Dec. 2, 2002
American Media Buying Huge Health &
amp; Fitness Mag Empire
American Media (AMI), publisher of the National Enquirer and a host of other magazines and supermarket tabloids has agreed to lay out $350 million to purchase Weider Health and Fitness the nation’s top publisher in the health and fitness market.
The Boca Raton, Florida-based AMI, is one of the largest media companies in the U.S. They publish six of the 14 best selling weekly magazines, including the #2 and #4 titles, the National Enquirer and Star, the best selling country music magazines, Country Weekly and Country Music, a Latino entertainment magazine, Mira!, a mass market automotive magazine, AMI's Auto World, and more than 200 Mini-Mags and Digests.
AMI recently launched its own book division, and owns Distribution Services, Inc., the country's #1 in-store magazine merchandising company, as well as the magazine industry’s leading newsstand marketing company.
In acquiring Weider, AMI will own such magazines as Muscle &
amp; Fitness, Flex, Muscle &
amp; Fitness Hers and Men's Fitness – publications with a total readership of more than 15 million and Shape, Fit Pregnancy and Natural Health, the leading titles in the women's active lifestyle, pre &
amp; post natal fitness and self-care categories. These titles have a readership in excess of 8 million, with Shape the market leader in both circulation and advertising.
Said AMI Chairman David J. Pecker "With the acquisition of Weider AMI will dramatically expand our consumer magazine division and transform itself into a major media company with a better balanced portfolio of revenues between circulation and advertising. Today, from celebrity journalism to country music, we have the #1 market share in all of our targeted publication categories, and the Weider acquisition gives us this same preeminence in the health &
amp; fitness industries."
In a memorandum to AMI employees announcing the purchase, Pecker said that AMI has transformed itself from a tabloid company to a major publishing company the past 3 1/2 years.
"It has been our goal since the beginning to build a major media platform. We started with the Globe [Communications Co. acquisition and the successful re-launching of all our six tabloids. We changed how the advertising industry perceived our titles, resulting in our achieving the highest ad page growth rate of any major publisher in 2001 and thus far in 2002. We turned Country Weekly around, then acquired Country Music, giving us the best selling titles in the industry.
"We launched new titles like Mira, Auto World and Street Performance Compact. We modernized the editorial focus of our mini-mags, micro-mags and digests. We re-invested in [Distribution Services Inc.] and doubled its revenues. And we started new ventures, including AMI books.”
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