Magazine publishing giant sells to Dotdash for $2.7B

A digital-age magazine giant was born Wednesday with the announcement that Dotdash, a publishing unit of Barry Diller’s InterActiveCorp, had reached an agreement to acquire Meredith Corporation, publisher of People, Better Homes & Gardens, InStyle, Entertainment Weekly and roughly 40 other titles and digital brands.

The purchase price is about $2.7 billion, or $42.18 per share, the companies said in a joint announcement. If the deal goes through, the new company would be called Dotdash Meredith, and it would be led by Dotdash CEO Neil Vogel, the companies said.

Joey Levin, IAC’s CEO, said in a statement that the combination of the two companies would “offer uniquely engaged audiences to advertisers and partners.” Tom Harty, CEO of Meredith, said in a statement, “We are thrilled to join forces to accelerate Meredith’s digital future.”

In an investor call Wednesday, Vogel said he was not planning on “cost synergy” — that is, layoffs or other cuts as a result of the merger. “Our playbook is going to drive audience, performance, and help the brands maintain their stance in the digital world that they have in the print world,” Vogel said.

The merger would come as a hit to Des Moines, Iowa, where Meredith is a major employer. Dotdash Meredith is to be based in New York, at Dotdash’s headquarters in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, an IAC spokesperson said. The new company would “keep a presence” in Des Moines, the spokesperson added.

Meredith was founded in 1902 by Edwin T. Meredith, later the agriculture secretary under President Woodrow Wilson, with a magazine called Successful Farming. It became a media behemoth in 2018, when it bought storied news media company Time Inc. for $2.8 billion.

IAC, where Diller is chairman, is the company behind Tinder, Match and OKCupid. Its publishing unit, Dotdash, operates 14 lifestyle journalism sites, including Serious Eats and Investopedia. Dotdash got its start in the early 1990s as website About.com and became part of IAC in 2012, when Diller bought it for $300 million from The New York Times Company.

If the planned merger goes through, Dotdash Meredith would be a top 10 publisher in terms of audience size, according to internet metrics service Comscore, the companies said.