Ninety-six-year-old Forbes Media is the latest high-profile media property to put itself up for sale.
The company, struggling with a sharp drop in advertising, said it decided to put itself on the block after it received “more than a few over the transom indications of interest,” CEO Mike Perlis wrote in a memo to staffers Friday.
Perlis said the company, controlled by the Forbes family, hired Deutsche Bank to seek out suitors.
It is hoping to fetch a price of $400 million, according to Bloomberg.
The company has had a roller coaster ride since 2006, when it raised $237.2 million by selling 40 percent of itself to Elevation Partners, a venture capital firm that includes U2 front man Bono and Silicon Valley entrepreneur Roger McNamee.
The duo hoped to sing a happy and profitable song based on Forbes’ digital growth. But the two, instead, are singing the blues as the investment is believed to be underwater.
When the recession hit, the Forbes media properties went into default on their debt, prompting massive layoffs and forcing chairman Steve Forbes and chief operating officer Timothy Forbes to bring in Perlis, the first non-family CEO.
“Anyone who is buying it will be looking real hard at what it is doing digitally,” said Thomas Murphy, who is head of securities and capital markets at Chicago-based law firm McDermott Will & Emery.
Although the family still controls the stock, it has not been involved in managing the company for the past three years.