“The owner of the Daily Mail, the publisher that bought Elite Daily in January 2015, says the New York-based startup has been a bust, and has written down all of its investment in the money-losing company, citing ‘poor performance.’ It is taking a $31 million loss in the process.”— Peter Kafka, recode.net
“Reports at the time of Elite Daily’s sale pegged the price at $40 million to $50 million. But a financial report from the Daily Mail and General Trust says the company paid 17.6 million pounds for the company — about $26 million dollars at 2015 exchange rates. It’s possible that retention bonuses or…”— Peter Kafka, recode.net
“In a Periscope livestream, Portnoy told viewers that he sold 51% of his stake and the deal was less than $20 million — about a $10 million to $15 million valuation, specifically. Portnoy says his site is "very profitable" but that the valuation was based on revenue, not profit which "f----- [them] u…”— Biz Carson, David Portnoy, businessinsider.com
““In its latest quarterly earnings report, Axel Springer—which owns a number of major daily newspapers and magazines in Germany, as well as a large online-classified site—said that if it had owned Business Insider for all of 2015, the site would have contributed $42.8 million in revenues. When the ac…”— Matthew Ingram, fortune.com
“Seeking to broaden its appeal to younger women, Time Inc. has snapped up Hello Giggles Inc., operator of the pop-culture, beauty and lifestyle website HelloGiggles.com. It is the latest in a series of digital acquisitions aimed at bolstering the reach of Time Inc.’s most important magazine brands. T…”— Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, wsj.com
“Online lifestyle publisher SheKnows Media Holdings has agreed to acquire StyleCaster, a group of fashion and beauty websites, in hopes of broadening its base of advertisers... StyleCaster, which operates sites such as Stylecaster.com, BeautyHigh.com and DailyMakeover.com, attracted an average of 2.9…”— Suzanne Vranica, blogs.wsj.com
“Univision disclosed the price tag for the stake in satirical site The Onion that it bought in January: It put up $27.1 million for a 40.5% interest. That gives Univision financial control, although it says the impact on its bottom line will be ‘immaterial.’”— David Lieberman, deadline.com
“Britain’s Daily Mail & General Trust PLC said Friday it has acquired cultural news website Elite Daily, which bills itself as ‘the voice of Generation Y,’ under a plan to broaden the U.K. publisher’s footprint in the U.S. The deal price was $47 million, a person familiar with the situation said. Eli…”— Lukas I. Alpert, wsj.com
“When starting Re/code, Swisher and Mossberg raised $10 million at a ~$28 million valuation from NBCUniversal and Windsor Media. A source who has viewed the startup's financials says Re/code was projected to generate $12 million this year, up from $10 million last year... The Re/code acquisition was…”— Alyson Shontell, businessinsider.com
“Although the terms of the Knowingly purchase haven’t been made public, sources who looked into buying some or all of the assets said the initial price for the editorial part of the company was $6 million, but eventually that was reduced to $1 million, and still many bidders backed out—in part becaus…”— Matthew Ingram, fortune.com
“Demand Media is selling humor site Cracked to E.W. Scripps for $39 million... It has 40 employees, and generated $11 million in revenue last year.In January, comScore said the site attracted eight million U.S. visitors.”— Peter Kafka, Re/Code, recode.net