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For the first time since B.C. Forbes launched his namesake magazine 93 years ago, there will be no members of the founding family involved in the day-day operations of the corporation.
The reigning Forbes family scions — Chairman and CEO Steve Forbes and Chief Operating Officer Tim Forbes — are exiting management of Forbes Media and turning the firm over to an outsider.
Publishing industry veteran Mike Perlis will be president and CEO, a new title at Forbes, as it scrambles to solve the riddle of how to blend its digital and print domains.
Steve Forbes, who is also editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine, will relinquish the CEO title, while Tim Forbes will give up the COO position.
“We’ve been looking at doing this for some time now,” said Tim Forbes, who will now be a board member and have the title of chairman of Forbes Digital. “It wasn’t a case of reluctance, but one of care and caution in finding the right person.”
Older brother Steve will keep the titles of chairman and editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine. Both brothers will keep their seats on the board.
“We’re definitely stepping down from day-to-day,” Tim Forbes said. “But we will both be active on the board. And we’ll both be pretty involved in helping Mike [Perlis].”
In 2006, the family-owned company sold a sizable stake — estimated to be around 40 percent of the stock for between $250 million and $300 million — to Elevation Partners, the Silicon Valley-based investment firm co-founded by U2 frontman Bono and Roger McNamee.
Like all of media, and publishing in particular, Forbes was hit hard by ad declines tied to the financial meltdown and has suffered through successive rounds of layoffs. In January, the family sold off Forbes’ iconic Greenwich Village headquarters.
Forbes is believed to have lost tens of millions of dollars in 2009, but has seen its fortunes improve somewhat this year.
Perlis was a well-known figure on the publishing scene with deep roots in the early days of International Data Group, a tech media and event powerhouse. In his last day job in the publishing world, he served as CEO of Ziff Davis Publishing from 1998 to 2000.
For the past 10 years, he’s been working as a partner in Softbank Capital, which has been involved in digital-content businesses including the Huffington Post.
Some observers were speculating yesterday that considering Perlis’ digital investment experience, the move might be the first step in putting Forbes Media itself in play.
Given that BusinessWeek sold for $9 million in 2009, it appears that Elevation dramatically overpaid four years ago.
Asked yesterday if Forbes is ready to consider a sale or other options Perlis said, “It is early for us to think that way, but we will do everything we can to build value.”
“I would say [a possible sale] is not on the radar at all at this point,” Tim Forbes said, adding that there is no change in the stock ownership between the Forbes family and Elevation.
“The family remains the majority owner of the business; that hasn’t changed.”