Weider For Sale

[Guest guest]

RA Hettinga sent us this news about Weider Publications, which is now up for

sale! Apparently this has something to do with the growth of our

Supertraining forum and all of its iconoclasts who are influencing all and

sundry in the strength and fitness world

<http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/07/business/media/07MUSC.html?dlbk= & pagewanted=p\

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The New York Times

October 7, 2002

Publisher of Fitness Magazines Is for Sale

By DAVID CARR

Weider Publications, a niche publisher of fitness and body-building

magazines, is for sale, two bankers who expect to be involved in bids said.

Bids will be accepted beginning today for the 63-year-old family-owned

publisher. The auction is expected to bring several substantial offers.

The company, based in Woodland Hills, Calif., was started in 1939 by the

co-founders of the Mr. Olympia contest, Joe and Ben Weider. It employs about

325 people who produce seven magazines - including Men's Fitness and Shape -

with a total circulation of more than four million.

One potential bidder, who declined to be identified, described the company as

" a classic special-interest publisher. " He added, " It has been an excellent

property for a number of years. There are tons of financial players who have

gotten killed in telecom and they want to get into something that has cash

flow, which Weider has. "

The parent company, Weider Health and Fitness, also owns the publicly traded

Weider Nutrition International, which sells nutritional supplements, sports

drinks and energy bars. That division will not be part of the sale.

The publishing unit is estimated to have annual revenue of $130 million. One

potential bidder said that the division could attract as much as $250

million, but other bidders believe the current economic conditions could take

the sales figure much lower.

The company did not return calls for comment, but potential bidders suggested

the company is selling the publishing unit because Joe Weider, founder and

chairman, who is around 80 years old, wants to leave publishing.

Most of the bidders are expected to be financial players, in part because the

endemic mix of muscle-building powders and supplements ads are seen as too

marginal to fit strategically with existing magazine companies.

The company's consumer-oriented magazines like Men's Fitness and Shape could

be attractive to consumer magazine publishers, but some of the companies that

have shopped for magazines in the past, like Primedia and Gruner & Jahr USA,

are busy digesting purchases they have already made. In March 2001, Gruner &

Jahr USA acquired Jump, Weider's teenager-oriented magazine and folded it

into YM, its own publication.

" The whole category of health and fitness is doing well, " said Chip Block,

vice chairman of USA Pubs Inc., a direct marketing company. " Weider is right

in the middle of the category, so if they are for sale, I think there will be

a great deal of interest. There haven't been viable auctions on

consumer-magazine properties for some time and there is plenty of cash around

to buy them. And there are plenty of logical, strategic buyers. "

Weider's top publication, Shape, a women's fitness magazine, has been

something of a juggernaut. Its circulation has grown from 950,000 in 1997 to

1.7 million for the first six months of this year. Ad pages, year to date,

are up 10 percent, according to the Publishers Information Bureau.

Weider's next largest title, Men's Fitness, has a circulation of about

635,000 readers, more than double its circulation in 1997. Ad pages at the

magazine are up 7 percent so far this year compared with the period last

year, according to the bureau.

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Dr Mel C Siff

Denver, USA

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Supertraining/