Ziff’s Last NewsStand Cover

Probably. Folio has a cover story on Ziff Davis in its latest issue, about the troubles it has been through, the challenges it is facing going ahead, and its inability to sell itself, in full or in parts till now. We’ve covered most of the details here in the past.
The PE firm that owns it, “Willis Stein needs to make at least $400 million in a transaction or a series of transactions before it starts to recoup any of its investment–it needs to cover its debt, which now is closing in on $400 million. And CEO BOB Callahan is heavily incented to get a deal done as well: Under the terms of his employment agreement, he gets a bonus of $5 million if the company is sold, subject to payment of debt first…In the end, the company or companies that Ziff becomes will be strikingly different from the consumer-enthusiast magazine company of the seventies or the computer-publishing giant of the eighties and nineties. It (or they) will be smaller, leaner, more e-media focused and, perhaps, a model for others.”

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