Time Inc. Sells Itself to Meredith Corp., Backed by Koch Brothers<br />But in its announcement of the deal, Meredith said<br />that the private equity fund, Koch Equity Development, would not have a seat on Meredith’s board of directors and would “have no influence on Meredith’s editorial or managerial operations.”<br />Steve Lombardo, a spokesman for Koch Industries, also said that the Kochs had no plans to take an active role in the expanded company.<br />In a note to its staff members on Sunday night, Rich Battista, the chief executive of Time Inc., said, he believed in “our strategic transformation plan<br />and in our ability to write the next great chapter of this storied company.”<br />“That said, as a publicly traded company, and one operating in such a dynamic industry as media, we know circumstances can change quickly,” he said.<br />The investment from the Kochs, Meredith said, “underscores a strong belief in Meredith’s strength as a business operator, its strategies<br />and its ability to unlock significant value from the Time Inc. acquisition.”<br />Some Koch allies have suggested that the brothers would view their investment purely as a moneymaking opportunity.<br />“This just happened to be one that made sense.”<br />A deal between Meredith and Time Inc. fell apart in 2013 after Meredith reportedly said<br />that it did not want to acquire some of Time Inc.’s best-known titles, including Time, Fortune and Sports Illustrated.<br />After the successful start of the business magazine Fortune in 1930, Luce added Life magazine to Time Inc.’s growing stable and transformed it into a wide-ranging general interest magazine<br />that made use of glorious photography to capture movie stars, world leaders and exotic, far-flung places.
