Barry Rosenstein’s Jana Partners, the activist investors who recently bought a stake in Time Inc., are said to be pushing a “consolidation thesis” as one possible way to unlock shareholder value for the sluggish stock, sources tell Media Ink.
Time Inc. management has already held one meeting with Rosenstein about four weeks ago, according to sources, but Chief Executive Joe Ripp was absent due to a brief hospital stay.
More talks are expected in the near future. Neither Time nor Jana is commenting.
At the meeting, Jana brought up the average age of Time Inc. board members. Ripp, who was 64 at the time of the last proxy statement, is the third- youngest on the board. Just Alibaba executive Michael Zeisser (51) and Betsy Holden (60) are younger.
Three — Sir Howard Stringer, Ronald Rolfe and David Bell — are septuagenarians.
The consolidation thesis being broached by the activist investor is also likely to renew Wall Street speculation about a potential Meredith/Time Inc. combo.
The two media companies talked about such a hook-up in 2013 when Time was still part of Time Warner. When the talks collapsed, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes instead spun off Time Inc. as an independent public company.