Quietly and with little fanfare, Forbes Media has picked up a new chief operating officer, Mike Federle, a former publisher and president of rival Fortune.
The COO title was last held by Timothy Forbes, one of the four brothers in the third generation of the family that controls the privately held company.
The arrival of Federle is another sign that the Forbes family, which technically still owns the media company, has been forced to turn over control to non-family executives at the behest of minority partner Elevation Partners.
Mike Perlis, the former chairman of Softbank Ventures and an ex-CEO of Ziff Davis, was tapped to be CEO last November, the first non-Forbes family member to have the top job.
Elevation, the investment firm headed by Roger McNamee that counts U2 front man Bono as a co-founder, paid $237 million for a 45 percent stake in Forbes in 2006, only to see the investment sour in the ensuing media meltdown.
At the time, Forbes Media was projected to make $90 million in profit in 2009. Instead, it posted a loss of $19.7 million and the following year went into technical default on a $90 million revolving line of credit. That forced a workout that resulted in the Forbes family stepping back from day-to-day control.
Both family scions — Timothy and Steve Forbes — exited management last November when Perlis came on board. Steve stepped down as CEO, but remains chairman of the board, while Timothy is a board member and the chairman of Forbes Digital.
Perlis actually announced Federle’s arrival internally late last month, but the appointment flew under the radar. This week, Federle turned up at the Forbes Media offices.
While some insiders wondered whether the arrival signaled Perlis’s power was being diminished, he insisted that he welcomed Federle into the fold.
“He’s a guy I’ve known for many years,” said Perlis. “He’s my hire.”
The internal announcement said that Federle was going to be working on business development partnerships, new business models and operating departments, including circulation and manufacturing.
Federle is trying to amp up the high-level executive conference business, which Fortune has been extremely successful in exploiting.
At the time of his appointment, Federle had been the chief operating officer of Technomy, a tech conference business started by former Fortune tech writer David Kirkpatrick. Forbes said it was going to be a sponsor of the Technomy 2011 conference, and in July said it had taken a small equity position in the company.
Budget baby
Budget Travel is looking for a new editor-in-chief as well as a new art director.
Editor Nina Willdorf and Art Director Robert Perino yesterday, they both announced they were leaving.
Some speculated there were differences with Fletcher Asset Management, the company that bought the magazine, then known as Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel, from Washington Post Co. in 2009.
Willdorf insisted the exits weren’t tied to any differences with the owners and gave us a copy of the memo she sent out to surprised staffers yesterday.
“It’s no surprise that I’m about to have my second child — and as we have just finished wrapping up our end-of-year issue, it’s a natural time for me to move on from my work here at Budget Travel,” the memo said.
Perino could not be reached for comment and there was no word on replacements. Through September, the magazine’s ad pages tumbled 17.2 percent to 242 pages.
No recipes
The bust-up of Reader’s Digest Association continues under new CEO Robert Guth.
Yesterday, the company hung a for-sale sign on Allrecipes.com, the most trafficked food Web site in the country, with 24 million unique visitors.
Meredith Corp., which is trying to finalize the purchase of Everyday with Rachael Ray magazine from RDA, had approached RDA about buying Allrecipes.com months ago, but was told at the time it was not for sale. Meredith and Time Inc. are among the companies who would bid heavily on the property.
Yesterday, Guth said, “The exploration of a sale of Allrecipes demonstrates our commitment to enhancing shareholder value and sharpening our strategic and financial focus on our core master brands such as Reader’s Digest, Taste of Home and Family Handyman.”
RDA also acknowledged for the first time that it had hired Morgan Stanley and Evercore to handle the restructuring process. Of course, readers of Media Ink knew that on July 20, when we broke the news.