文章基本信息

标题：Does High Price for Cygnus Bode Well For Other B-to-B Deals on the Horizon? - Brief Article - Statistical Data Included
作者：Tony Silber
期刊名称：Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management
印刷版ISSN：0046-4333
出版年度：2000
卷号：July 1, 2000
出版社：Red 7 Media, LLC

Does High Price for Cygnus Bode Well For Other B-to-B Deals on the Horizon? - Brief Article - Statistical Data Included

Tony Silber

$275 million paid by newcomer CommerceConnect is called an "aggressive price."

The jury is out on whether CommerceConnect Media's $275 million purchase of Cygnus Business Media represents a paradigm that may apply to other b-to-b publishing companies now in play.

"It's an aggressive price," says Cameron Bishop, CEO of Intertec Publishing, which publishes FOLIO:. "It reflects the increased value of the b-to-b community today. But I'm not sure you can draw a correlation that Advanstar and Miller Freeman will go for the same type of multiple. The types of buyers could be very different."

The deal--whose sale price was a multiple of nearly three times revenue--is one of the biggest transactions so far this year. It represents a spectacular increase in value for Cygnus, which sold three years ago for $97 million to two cable television executives, Gerry Hogan and F. Blair Schmidt-Fellner.

Cygnus, which has 48 magazines, 16 trade shows and conferences, 17 custom publications and more than 430 employees, grew rapidly under Hogan and Schmidt-Fellner. Revenues jumped from $66 million in 1997 to $96 million this year, according to Paul Madder, CEO of seven-month-old CommerceConnect and former president of Reed Exhibitions.

"When we formed CommerceConnect the goal was to identify and acquire a leading company that provides a variety of media solutions in each market we serve," says Mackler, adding that he plans to grow Cygnus organically and through more buying. "One of the many things that appealed to us about Cygnus is that they were already well on their way." Mackler was backed by the Boston private-equity firm ABRY Partners, which put up $100 million for the acquisition

Other industry observers were impressed by the price, but say that now comes the heavy lifting. "That's a full price," says John Wickersham, CEO of VNU Business Media. "Congratulations to Gerry and Blair. The question is, where are you going to take it? Is this a good platform to build on?"