Biglari claims Maxim turned a profit late in ’16
MAXIM
cut costs in the fourth quarter, helping the moneylosing men’s magazine whittle down its losses in the period, regulatory filings show.
The red ink amounted to $432,000 in the period despite the cost-cutting, because revenue continued to fall.
For all of 2016, Maxim’s losses totaled more than $10 million, down slightly from 2015.
Sardar Biglari, chairman of Biglari Holdings, Maxim’s parent, had pledged that the magazine would turn a profit by the end of 2016.
Although he failed to meet that pledge for the entire quarter, Biglari said in his annual letter to shareholders that the magazine did turn a profit “at the very end” of the quarter.
The executive did not explain what he meant by “the very end” of the quarter.
Biglari Holdings did not break out fourth-quarter results for its individual properties — like Maxim and the Steak ’n Shake restaurant chain. But fourth-quarter estimates were distilled by backing out results for the first nine months of the year from the annual results.
“Because of the tireless efforts of the Maxim team, we attained our previously set goal of becoming profitable during 2016, albeit at the very end of the year,” Biglari said in the letter.
The Iranian-born businessman who fancies himself a Warren Buffett protégé, revealed that his Maxim purchase price plus the operating losses mean the company has spent $43.9 million so far on Maxim since it was acquired in February 2014.
For the full year, Maxim’s revenue plunged 62 percent, to $9.2 million, from $24.5 million a year earlier.
Four months after taking the reins of Avenue magazine, Editor-in-Chief Michael Gross will unleash a redesign on Friday, adding new columnists, updating its Web site and tweaking the logo for the first time in its 41-year history.
It’s all part of a plan to refocus and move beyond the traditional old society wealthy to encompass all of the rich — old and nouveau — who are shaping the Big Apple today.
“It’s not just about ancestor worship,” said Gross. “A whole new class has been layered upon the older wealthy class that ruled New York for the past 100 years.”
With three best-sellers under his belt, Gross has made a career of chronicling the glitzy and famous through books that include “740 Park: The Story of the World’s Richest Apartment Building,” “House of Outrageous Fortune,” about the inhabitants of 15 Central Park West, and “Model: the Ugly Business of Beautiful Women.”
A follow-up to “Model,” titled “Focus: The Secret, Sexy, Sometimes Sordid World of Fashion Photographers,” hit in mid-2016 from publisher Altria.
Avenue, owned by Manhattan Media, cut back to nine issues a year from 12 but now devotes summer issues to the Hamptons (Avenue on the Beach) and a winter issue to Palm Beach — tracking the old and new rich to their latest haunts.
The two new columnists to debut in the March issue are Suzanne O’Malley, doing a back-page feature on what Gross calls “the mores and habits of the Avenue class,” and veteran magazine scribe Beth Landman, a longtime staffer at New York Magazine who will debut a “Food for Thought” column on restaurants.
Ben Diamond, son of Lebenthal & Co. boss Alexandra Lebenthal, has been hired as an associate editor.
Time Inc. is a week away from seeing what five potential suitors may offer to buy the whole company — but its management is still pressing ahead with its own digital efforts.
On Thursday, it launched Well Done, a social media brand created for food lovers who consume and share videos.
Well Done is led by Stacey Rivera, director off Time’s recently formed digital food desk, and Michael Grady, the supervising producer of a 10-person video team based in Birmingham, Ala.
They will produce a daily only slate of new recipes and food news that draws on titles like Cook- ing Light, Food & Wine, Real Simple, Southern Living and the digital site Extra Crispy and others. Emmis Communications ended up selling Los Angeles magazine and three other titles to Troy, Mich.-based Hour Media for the fire-sale price of $6.5 million — a significant discount off the price it paid for the company. The other titles included in the deal are Atlanta Magazine, Cincinnati Magazine and Orange Coast. Back in 2000, Emmis had beaten out Primedia, the then-owner of New York Magazine, to acquire Los Angeles Magazine for $30 million. “The market has not been good,” conceded Emmis CEO Jeff Smulyan, who said that, with the retreat from publishing, the company will concentrate on its 20 radio stations, including three in NYC: Hot 97 (WQHT-FM); WBLS-FM 107.5 and; the AMstation WLIB 1190. Emmis will hang onto Indianapolis Monthly in its hometown as its last magazine media.