Business

SHE WANTS MORE TIME

JOHN Squires, once hailed as an heir apparent to take over Time Inc. when Ann Moore stepped down as CEO, was handed a new assignment yesterday, figuring out a new business plan for the future.

The reason? Moore, dubbed “Queen Ann” by a few old Time Inc. hands, has decided to extend her term in office.

According to sources, Moore recently inked a new contract that extends her stay at the company until 2012.

“Ann is consolidating her power over there,” said one insider. “Things are getting ugly over there.”

The memo that went out to all Time Inc. employees yesterday said that Squires will have four related initiatives: evolving current Web businesses; accelerating the applications for smartphone platforms; developing new products and business models for portable digital readers and exploring partnerships with other publishers to develop the optimal retail store for digital products.

Moore, who in an earlier downsizing took over the day-to-day operations of the Style and Entertainment Group that includes People, is also taking over Squires’ former responsibilities running the news business, which includes Time and Sports Illustrated.

Speculation has been swirling in recent weeks that since Time Warner has decided to spin off AOL, the publishing operation would be next.

There are also some who think that Squires in his new role will not only be picking out hot trends on which the company can capitalize, but also suggesting which magazines within the Time Inc. empire might be unloaded.

A major focus of the speculation has centered on the Southern Progress unit, where magazines like Sunset and Cooking Light are housed. Over the years, people from publisher Meredith Corp. to Mexican billionaire Alfonso Romo have expressed interest in buying the unit.

One source said that Romo in early 2007 was ready to shell out $1 bil lion for Southern Pro gress, but had trouble obtaining financing due to the credit crunch.

A Time Warner spokesman yesterday dismissed the idea that Squires’ move is related to what par ent Time Warner might eventually de cide to do with Time Inc. The spokesman added, “No investment banker has been hired at Time Inc.”

Meanwhile, many observers see Squires’ job as a difficult one.

“There’s no question if you are going to do this with Squires, you’ll get some real results,” said one source close to the company.

“I do think it is a real job trying to make digital platforms play against all the different devices out there and probably looking at this notion of gating some of the Web sites.”

Cellar seller

The Forbes family continues to liquidate assets — including some of the family’s most liquid.

Timothy Forbes, chief operating officer of Forbes Media, recently sold off a portion of his private wine collection at a high-stakes auction at the Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong.

The sale was part of the first overseas auction run by Zachys Wine & Liquor, a Scarsdale-based wine house that used to be a partner with Christie’s.

Also rumored to be on the auction block is the toy soldier collection of the late Malcolm Forbes on permanent display at the Forbes Galleries at the company’s Greenwich Village headquarters.

The wine auction was billed in the Zachys’ catalog as Magnificent Wines from the Collection of Timothy C. Forbes and Zachys said it fetched a total of $1.15 million, slightly above the pre-sale estimates in the catalog.

Among the choice lots: a full case of Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1982 that sold for $37,471; 12 bottles of Chateau Lafite Rothschild 2000 that sold for $16,394; two full cases of Chateau Haut Brion, which sold for $14,832. A case with an assortment of 1991 vintage wines fetched $20,297. Other vintages were 30 lots from Domaine de la Romanee Conti, including two bottles of La Tache 1978, which went for $5,933. Twelve bottles of La Tache 1990 went for $43,716. A single magnum of Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1953 sold for $6,557.

A Forbes spokeswoman, reached at the Forbes CEO conference in Edinburgh, Scotland, said, “This sale represented a fraction of [Timothy Forbes’] personal wine collection. Mr. Forbes has been collecting wine for years for pleasure, consumption and investment. Wine is an extremely liquid investment.”

She added, “As for the toy soldiers, they are not going to auction now and there is a great deal of other art in the Forbes Galleries besides the toy soldiers and they will remain at the exhibition galleries.”

Lots of other artifacts collected by Malcolm Forbes, including a Faberge egg collection and a letter written by Abraham Lincoln, have been sold off since his death in 1990.

Crain’s pain

There is another sign of retrenchment in the privately held business-to-business publishing empire of Keith and Rance Crain, the brothers who control Crain Communications.

Crain’s New York Business said it is going to chop five more issues from its publishing schedule this year and do six “double is sues” in total, bringing to 46 the number of issues the paper will publish this year.

Last year, the weekly skipped only one week, and that was at the end of the year.

This year, Crain’s New York will pub lish double issues around July 4, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and at the end of year. It will also publish just three issues in August.

“We have a vibrant online product and felt we needed to find some efficiencies,” said Crain’s New York Publisher Jill Kaplan.

Meanwhile, Crain’s Chicago Business said it will skip five weeks of publication, while in Cleveland and Detroit, where the company publishes two other regional business ti tles, the thought of skip ping issues is still under review.

The company re cently suspended the print editions of its in dustry trade Television Week, going to an online- only format.

One refugee from TelevisionWeek, veteran reporter Josef Adalain, recently landed at Sharon Waxman‘s Thewrap.com, covering Hollywood.

keith.kelly@nypost.com