WASHINGTON: Time Magazine is being sold by Meredith Corp. to Marc Benioff, a co-founder of Salesforce, and his wife.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the iconic news magazine is being sold for $190 million to Benioff, one of four co-founders of Salesforce, a cloud computing pioneer.

The sale is occurring nearly eight months after Meredith Corp. completed its purchase of Time Inc.

Meredith, the publisher of such magazines as People and Better Homes & Gardens, had put four Time Inc. publications up for sale in March. Negotiations for the sale of the three other publications Fortune, Money and Sports Illustrated are continuing.

The prospective sale is expected to close within 30 days. In an interview with the Journal, Benioff said he and his wife were investing “in a company with tremendous impact on the world, one that is also an incredibly strong business. That’s what we’re looking for when we invest as a family.”

The purchase of Time by Benioff continues a trend of acquisitions of old-line media institutions by wealthy tech giants. The Washington Post was purchased by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in 2013 for $250 million.

Time, like other magazines, has struggled with continued declines in print advertising and newsstand sales.

Time, started by Yale University graduates Henry Luce and Briton Hadden, first went on sale in March 1923. The two had first worked together on the Yale Daily News.

Published in Dawn, September 18th, 2018